Making it harder to vote, and easier to win anyway

Since 2021, Republican-controlled states have passed a wave of laws restricting how people register and cast a ballot, then followed it with a second wave of mid-decade redistricting to redraw the maps voters use.

The wave began right after the 2020 election. Georgia's SB 202 required photo ID for absentee ballots, capped drop boxes at one per 100,000 voters, and made it a crime to hand a bottle of water to someone waiting in line. Texas eliminated the drive-through and 24-hour voting options that Harris County had used heavily in 2020. Florida restricted drop box hours and tightened mail ballot ID rules the same year, and Iowa cut its early voting window from 29 days to 20.

The restrictions kept layering on through 2024. Ohio added a statewide photo ID mandate and stopped accepting utility bills or bank statements as proof of address. Arkansas and Mississippi banned absentee drop boxes outright, a particular burden for rural and disabled voters who rely on them. Arizona began requiring documentary proof of citizenship for state-form voter registration, a requirement now before the Supreme Court. Congress's own version, the SAVE Act, passed the House in 2025 over objections that 21 million Americans lack ready access to a passport or birth certificate. In April 2025, Wisconsin voters made their state's photo ID law nearly impossible to repeal by writing it directly into the state constitution.

Then came the maps. In a break from the normal once-a-decade redistricting cycle, three Republican-controlled states redrew their congressional districts mid-decade in 2025, all aimed at the 2026 midterms. Texas redrew all 38 districts at President Trump's request, targeting five Democratic-held seats; a federal panel found evidence of racial gerrymandering and blocked the map, but the Supreme Court stayed that ruling and let it stand for 2026. Missouri split the Kansas City-based 5th District to manufacture a seventh Republican seat, and when opponents gathered signatures for a repeal referendum, the Secretary of State rejected the petition, ruling redistricting isn't subject to referendum at all. North Carolina redrew its map without needing the governor's signature, since redistricting bills there aren't subject to veto.

Georgia added one more layer in 2024: SB 189 made it easier to sustain mass challenges to other voters' registrations, building on the mass-challenge process its 2021 law had already authorized.