Impacts Of New State Voting Laws On 2026 Midterms

Since the beginning of President Trump's second term, many states have passed laws relaxing or tightening voter rules, including laws regarding how and when to vote by mail. NTD's Arlene Richards reviews some of the ones that most affect the 2026 midterms. Nearly 200 bills affecting elections were passed by state legislatures in 2025 and so far in 2026. The laws range from citizenship and ID requirements to mail-in voting to voter roll maintenance. And all of these could have some impact, for better or worse, on the upcoming midterm elections, starting with citizenship requirements. Only U.S. citizens should be able to vote, period. At least eight states have passed laws that affirm voters must be citizens of the United States. In Indiana, people who register to vote with IDs issued to non-citizens must show proof of citizenship. Iowa's Senate has recently passed a number of bills involving citizenship, including when registering vehicles, renewing driver's licenses, and registering to vote. 277 non-citizens were registered to vote in Iowa. 35 of those non-citizens successfully voted in the 2024 election. But one bill on citizenship didn't get the votes. I absolutely want to make sure that every individual that is eligible to vote in the state of Iowa gets that right. Iowa Democrats almost unanimously rejected a bill that would require counties to use the federal SAVE database to verify all registered voters of their citizenship status. They argued the database is unreliable, but Republicans said this is necessary to protect elections. Next up is voter ID. As with proof of citizenship, Republicans have argued that voter IDs are crucial to verifying whether or not a person is a legal citizen. Several states, including Montana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Georgia, Tennessee, and over 10 more have passed stricter voter ID laws. For example, Georgia and Tennessee won't accept electronic driver's licenses as voter ID. And Kentucky and Montana have tightened their list of acceptable voter ID. I move that Senate Bill 154 be taken from its place in the Orders of the In Kentucky, Senate Bill 154 removes Social Security cards and public benefit cards from their list of acceptable voter IDs. My research does not reveal almost any voter fraud. Let's not be so naive to think there hasn't been voter fraud. Has it been broad? Don't know. But again, why wouldn't we want reasonable safeguards in place to make sure that it doesn't? In some states like California, voters only have to attest to their citizenship. President Trump has been pushing hard for proof of citizenship and voter ID. The Save America Act. The Act would require voter registration applicants to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship and show voter ID before being eligible to vote in federal elections. The House has already passed two versions of it, but the Senate has been debating over their own version for weeks. We don't have the votes either to proceed, get on a talking filibuster, nor to sustain one if we got on it. If the Act doesn't pass before the midterms, President Trump has said there will be big trouble for Republicans. Moving on to mail-in ballots. Nearly 20 states have changed their mail-in ballot rules. Kansas has tightened its deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots. Those ballots must now be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day. It cuts off the previous requirement that allowed ballots to arrive up to three days after Election Day. California has taken a different approach. Their new law extends the deadline for receiving mail-in ballots to seven days after Election Day, up from three days before. It applies only to all mail-in elections, which any county can hold if it meets certain criteria. Under the Save America Act, mail-in ballots wouldn't be allowed at all in federal elections, with some exceptions. Other laws that are being changed across the county are early voting and voter roll maintenance. Changes in early voting rules range from adding more locations to extending the number of weeks for voting. The Justice Department has sued about 29 states for failure to provide voter roll information. They're tracking lists to ensure states are conducting regular maintenance to remove non-citizens and others who are no longer eligible. Now, at least 14 states, including some that were sued, have enacted laws that check voter rolls more frequently, with some specifically looking for non-citizens. With the primaries already kicking off in some states to decide who will be chosen for the final midterm race, Democrats are pushing to win over voters. Meanwhile, Republicans are hoping to hold on to and expand their narrow majority. Arlene Richards, NTD News.