Arizona legis­latures passed three restrict­ive voting bills this year, and they have pre-filed at least one bill that would restrict voting access by impos­ing stricter iden­ti­fic­a­tion require­ments. Addi­tion­ally, state legis­lat­ors intro­duced three bills in 2021 that would have directly empowered partisan offi­cials to reject or over­turn elec­tion results. The state also conduc­ted an infam­ous partisan elec­tion review this year, when it contrac­ted a third party to audit Mari­copa County’s 2020 elec­tion results. Despite no evid­ence of fraud, the review has drummed up false rhet­oric around voter fraud and galvan­ized public offi­cials to push for restrict­ive voting legis­la­tion.

Geor­gia passed S.B. 202, a restrict­ive omni­bus law that crim­in­al­izes passing out water to voters wait­ing in line. The law also politi­cizes the state’s board of elec­tions and grants the board new powers to remove profes­sional elec­tion offi­cials and seize control of elec­tion admin­is­tra­tion in specific juris­dic­tions, which could lead to partisan influ­ence in the elec­tion certi­fic­a­tion process. Moreover, partisan actors sought to review the elec­tion results in Fulton County because of false alleg­a­tions of fraud, despite the fact that state elec­tion offi­cials conduc­ted a stat­utory audit that led to a full hand count along with two machine counts.

Geor­gia has high-profile elec­tions for secret­ary of state and governor in 2022. One candid­ate for secret­ary of state has repeated false fraud claims and voted not to certify the results of the 2020 pres­id­en­tial elec­tion, while two candid­ates for governor have expli­citly stated that they would not have certi­fied the results of the 2020 elec­tion had they been in office at the time.

Michigan’s legis­lature passed — but the governor vetoed — three restrict­ive voting bills; 15 restrict­ive bills are carry­ing over into the 2022 legis­lat­ive session; and the state has a gubernat­orial race next year.

Addi­tion­ally, partisan actors have turned to a ballot initi­at­ive to pass restrict­ive meas­ures to bypass both the governor and the people. Due to a quirk of the Michigan Consti­tu­tion, if a ballot initi­at­ive garners the required number of signa­tures of support (340,047), the legis­lature gets a chance to pass it in its own right. This means the major­ity of Michigan voters never get an oppor­tun­ity to vote on the initi­at­ive, and the governor has no power to veto such an initi­at­ive if the legis­lature passes it.

Anti-voting activ­ists are currently organ­iz­ing a restrict­ive ballot initi­at­ive that would, among other things, elim­in­ate the abil­ity for voters who lack a voter iden­ti­fic­a­tion to cast a regu­lar ballot; require voters to put the last four digits of their Social Secur­ity number on their voter regis­tra­tion; require voters to provide their driver’s license number, state ID card number, or the last four digits of their Social Secur­ity number on absentee ballot applic­a­tions; and prohibit either the secret­ary of state or local elec­tion offi­cials from affirm­at­ively send­ing absentee ballot applic­a­tion forms to voters. The number of signa­tures required to give the green light for the Michigan Legis­lature to roll back the voting rights of millions of Michig­anders — unchecked by the governor or voters — is fewer than the actual number of votes separ­at­ing the two major candid­ates in the state’s last gubernat­orial elec­tion.

In one Michigan county, a partisan group was given access to voting machines to review the 2020 elec­tion results, despite the fact that Michigan has a robust, accur­ate risk-limit­ing audit system already in place. And lawmakers intro­duced a bill that would have allowed a member of a county board of canvass­ers to rescind their vote to certify the results of an elec­tion — which is exactly what Pres­id­ent Trump sought in Wayne County after the 2020 elec­tion.

Pennsylvani­a’s legis­lature passed one wide-ranging restrict­ive bill this year, which the governor vetoed. Thirty restrict­ive bills are carry­ing over into the 2022 legis­lat­ive session. The state also has a gubernat­orial race next year. Four of the restrict­ive carry­over bills are consti­tu­tional amend­ment propos­als that would enable state legis­lat­ors to get restrict­ive voting laws on the books without the governor’s review. (These propos­als would need major­ity approval by the 2021–2022 and 2022–2023 state legis­latures, and then major­ity approval from voters).

Further, offi­cials in one rural Pennsylvania county agreed to a ques­tion­able partisan review of their 2020 elec­tion results by a private secur­ity firm with no previ­ous exper­i­ence audit­ing elec­tions and funded by Sidney Powell, a Trump-affil­i­ated attor­ney who pursued unsuc­cess­ful post-elec­tion lawsuits based on debunked conspir­acy theor­ies. A Pennsylvania state senator who was present at Capitol Hill during the Janu­ary 6 insur­rec­tion has since used the “results” of this ques­tion­able review to push for further restrict­ive voting legis­la­tion.

Texas passed S.B. 1 this year, one of the harshest restrict­ive voting bills in the coun­try. The law makes it harder for voters with disab­il­it­ies and language access barri­ers to obtain assist­ance, constrains elec­tion work­ers’ abil­ity to stop harass­ment by poll watch­ers, and bans 24-hour and drive-thru voting, among other meas­ures.

Texas legis­lat­ors also intro­duced legis­la­tion this year that would have provided for the over­turn­ing of elec­tion results and that expli­citly called for third party forensic reviews of the elec­tion results. Even without author­iz­ing legis­la­tion, the secret­ary of state’s office launched an unne­ces­sary audit into the 2020 elec­tion in four Texas counties. Even though routine audits had already occurred, docu­ments published by the secret­ary of state’s office would allow for a manual count of votes in those counties, as well as an exam­in­a­tion of other elec­tion records and voter lists.

Wiscon­sin’s legis­lature passed two restrict­ive voting bills this year, which the governor vetoed. Thir­teen restrict­ive bills are carry­ing over into the 2022 legis­lat­ive session, and the state has a gubernat­orial race next year.

Wiscon­sin has also initi­ated an “invest­ig­a­tion” into the 2020 elec­tion results. The effort lacks trans­par­ency, fair­ness, and cred­ib­il­ity, and is being staffed by a well-known partisan oper­at­ive with a prior history of spread­ing false claims of elec­tion fraud.

Missouri, New Hamp­shire, and South Caro­lina have each pre-filed at least one voting bill that would restrict access to the vote, as well as bills that would initi­ate or allow for partisan reviews of elec­tion results in 2022. Missouri also intro­duced legis­la­tion this past session that would have empowered partisan offi­cials to over­turn elec­tion results.

Flor­ida and Tennessee have each pre-filed bills that would initi­ate partisan reviews of the 2020 elec­tion results in 2022.