Voting Laws Roundup 2017

Several states will soon implement major new voting restrictions

Five states have already enacted laws making it harder to register or vote, one more is on the verge of doing so, and more states could act later this year:

• Iowa’s governor signed a broad-based law that will require voter ID, restrict voter registration efforts, and impose new burdens on Election Day registration and early and absentee voting. Although not as restrictive as a North Carolina law that passed in 2013 (and was blocked by a federal court), Iowa’s law similarly restricts voting in a number of different ways.  
• Arkansas passed two bills to bring back voter ID to the state after a court struck down an earlier law.
• North Dakota also enacted legislation to re-impose an identification requirement after a court blocked a strict ID law in 2016.
• Indiana enacted a law that will implement a purge of registered voters from the rolls. The program will remove voters in a manner similar to purges in other states that have been criticized for being error-prone and inadequately protective of eligible voters.  
• Montana’s house and senate passed a bill that will prevent civic groups and individuals from helping others vote absentee by collecting and delivering their voted ballots. The bill now goes to voters as a November 2018 ballot measure.
• Georgia’s legislature sent bill that would make voter registration more difficult to the Governor, and he signed it on May 9.

Voter ID bills are still the most common form of voting restriction moving in state legislatures

Since 2010, ten states have passed more burdensome voter ID requirements. As in previous years, voter ID is the most common type of legislation to restrict voting access this year. Overall, 39 bills imposing harsher voter ID requirements were introduced in 22 states. As noted above, three states — Arkansas, Iowa, and North Dakota have already enacted voter ID laws.

Legislation pending in other states poses risks to voting access. For example, Oklahoma’s Senate passed a bill that would add a voter ID requirement to the state constitution. The bill passed with a wide margin in the Senate, setting up a likely house vote. Meanwhile, Texas’s senate has passed a voter ID bill, discussed in further detail below, that would put in place a voter ID provision less voter-friendly than the current, court-ordered provision.

Restrictions on voter registration are a close second

After voter ID, making the voter registration process more burdensome is the most popular subject of bills to cut back on voting access. Overall, 33 bills to make the voter registration process more burdensome have been introduced in 22 states. Bills have at least been considered and approved by a legislative committee in Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia. Of these, New Hampshire’s has the most momentum: a bill to make registration more difficult for students, supported by the Secretary of State, has passed the Senate.

The majority of states acting to restrict voting are legislating on topics where courts previously acted to protect voters

Most of the states that have already enacted or on the verge of enacting new voting restrictions are passing legislation of the same subject on which courts have recently acted to protect voters from past voting restrictions.

• Arkansas has passed two harmful voter ID bills. One, which restores a statutory requirement that voters show one of a limited set of ID, has been enacted. The other, which would amend the state constitution to require voter ID, must be approved by the voters in the form of a ballot initiative before taking effect. A state court blocked a previous ID law in 2014.
• Georgia enacted a law imposing a requirement that information on voter registration forms match exactly with other state records — a burdensome process known as “no match, no vote.” Only months earlier, the secretary of state agreed in a court settlement to stop a similar procedure that had prevented tens of thousands from registering.
• Iowa enacted an omnibus voting bill, described in further detail above, on May 5. The bill includes a requirement that suspected non-citizens be deleted from the voter rolls. Such removals programs, if conducted without safeguards to adequately ensure those being removed are actually ineligible, can sweep in thousands of eligible voters, as has happened in Colorado and Florida. In 2014, a state court blocked former Secretary of State Matt Schultz from purging suspected noncitizens because he lacked authority to carry out the program in the manner he intended.
• North Dakota’s Governor signed a bill on April 25 that would restore a strict voter ID requirement in the state. In 2016, a federal court partially blocked a previous ID law that accepted a narrow range of identification documents and did not provide any meaningful voting opportunities for voters without the accepted ID. The new bill slightly expands options to use for ID, but eliminates the process the court imposed, which allows voters without IDs to cast a ballot that counts on Election Day, and instead included a more burdensome process.  One legislator argued that that the bill does not pass constitutional muster.
• Texas’s legislature is considering a voter ID bill that that is on the verge of being passed a house committee has already approved the legislation and it has already passed the senate. The state attorney general has described the bill as a response to a court’s blocking of the state’s previous strict voter ID law. Critics observe that the bill, if enacted, would put in place a voter id requirement that is more stringent than the existing court-ordered process.

Bills to restrict voter access approved by state legislatures in 2017

Overview of Legislation to Expand Voting Access

Overall, at least 531 bills to enhance voting access have been introduced in 45 states. One hundred fifty-six bills have at least been considered and approved by a legislative committee in 30 states.