Author

Zachary Roth

Zachary Roth

Zachary Roth is the National Democracy Reporter for States Newsroom.

In September, the GOP-controlled Wisconsin state senate voted to oust Meagan Wolfe as the head of the Wisconsin Elections Commission

Anti-democratic moves by state lawmakers raise fears for 2024 election

By: - September 24, 2023

In Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers are threatening to impeach both the state’s election administrator, who is highly regarded nationally, and a state Supreme Court justice despite a ruling by the state’s judicial commission that the justice had done nothing wrong — effectively nullifying a recent statewide election she won, Democrats say. In North Carolina, a bill […]

The Declaration of Independence

Americans are worried about democracy. You wouldn’t know it from the GOP debate.

By: - August 24, 2023

There’s a growing feeling, among both experts and ordinary Americans, that our democracy isn’t functioning well — and even that it’s under threat. “American democracy is cracking,” the Washington Post reported August 18. “I’m terrified,” one democracy expert told the paper. “I think we are in bad shape, and I don’t know a way out.” […]

Signage at an early voting center on September 23, 2016, in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Changes in state election laws have little impact on results, new study finds

By: - July 16, 2023

In recent years, U.S. politics has been consumed by partisan fights over states’ election policies. But a new study by two political scientists is causing a stir by finding that state legislators’ changes to election laws — both those that tighten election rules in the name of integrity, and those that loosen rules to expand […]

A voter leaves after casting their ballot at the Phoenix Art Museum on November 08, 2022 in Phoenix, Arizona.

Federal health insurance website lags in voter registration assistance, Democrats charge

By: - July 2, 2023

A group of U.S. Senate Democrats is pressing the Biden administration to make it easier for the millions of Americans who sign up each year for health insurance through a federal website to register to vote. The lawmakers, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wrote in a letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human […]

Voters fill out advanced ballots

Red and blue state divide grows even wider in 2023’s top voting and election laws 

By: - June 25, 2023

Next year’s elections are still 16 months away. But for voters, perhaps the most important developments took place during the first half of this year — when states drafted and passed the legislation that will shape how those contests are run. “The rules that will govern the 2024 election are being written today,” said Megan […]

New Hampshire Residents Go To The Polls In Presidential Primary

States with low election turnout did little in 2023 to expand voting access

By: - June 17, 2023

This year’s state legislative sessions are almost all wrapped up. And on voting and elections policy, the headlines have largely focused on a new wave of restrictive voting laws passed in big Republican-led states like Florida, Texas, and Ohio, as well as expansive laws approved in Democratic-led states like Michigan, Minnesota, and New York. But […]

U.S. Supreme Court facade

Ruling in Alabama case could boost suits increasing Black voters’ power in other states

By: - June 11, 2023

In one sense, the Supreme Court’s surprise ruling striking down Alabama’s 2022 congressional maps maintains the legal status quo. By 5-4, the justices rejected the state’s attempt to restrict the ability of the Voting Rights Act to block gerrymanders that suppress the power of minority voters. But that dramatically understates the impact of the case, […]

Election worker Virginia Engroff watches voters fill out advanced ballots

GOP-led states plan new voter data systems to replace one they rejected. Good luck with that.

By: - May 26, 2023

So far this year, seven states, all Republican-led, have left the Electronic Registration Information Center, an interstate compact for sharing voter registration data, and more could follow. Amid the exodus, some states, including Texas and Virginia, have said they plan to create their own data-sharing networks to replace ERIC. Pledging to build a new system […]

Republicans have accused Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson of deliberately leaving tens of thousands of dead voters on the rolls in order to encourage illegal voting

A GOP claim that Michigan purposely tried to encourage voter fraud doesn’t fit with facts

By: - May 6, 2023

Republicans at a recent congressional hearing accused Michigan’s chief election official of deliberately leaving tens of thousands of dead voters on the rolls in order to encourage illegal voting. Even at a time of intense partisan conflict over election policies, it was a strikingly direct charge against a sitting official — and one made not […]

A top GOP lawyer wants to crack down on the college vote. States already are.

By: - April 30, 2023

A top Republican election lawyer recently caused a stir when she told GOP donors that the party should work to make it harder for college students to vote in key states. But the comments from Cleta Mitchell, who worked closely with then-President Donald Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election, are perhaps less surprising […]

Voters fill out ballots in booths

U.S. elections official takes part in secretive GOP conference, sparking backlash

By: - April 14, 2023

A commissioner of a federal elections agency recently spoke at a secretive conference of conservative voting activists and Republican secretaries of state and congressional staff — a step that election experts call highly improper for an official charged with helping states administer fair and unbiased elections.  U.S. Election Assistance Commissioner Donald Palmer, the former chief […]

Mary Galligan at a League of Women Voters of Topeka and Shawnee County voter registration booth Aug. 22, 2022, at the Topeka and Shawnee County library. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

Federal agencies lag in registering voters despite Biden executive order, advocates say

By: - April 12, 2023

Within weeks of taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order — hailed by voter advocates as potentially transformative — that for the first time committed the U.S. government to registering new voters at federal agencies. But just over two years later, most of the 10 agencies examined in a recent report […]