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"Missouri Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins said Tuesday that he wouldn’t certify a referendum seeking to undo the state’s new GOP-drawn congressional map, arguing that the effort was unconstitutional."

Mail voting is under unprecedented federal pressure heading into the 2026 midterm elections. From the White House to the Supreme Court to Congress, a series of developments is threatening a form of voting that tens of millions of Americans rely on—and that was relatively uncontroversial until just a few years ago. This explainer examines how mail voting became a partisan battleground, what the current federal threats mean for mail voting, and what states, election officials, and advocates can do in response.

"With federal redistricting lawsuits increasingly difficult, state laws offer gerrymandering opponents another path. Thirty states have some form of a constitutional requirement for free elections, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. And at least 10 state supreme courts have found that state courts can decide cases involving allegations of partisan gerrymandering, according to a 2024 review by the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School."

State and local governments are increasingly using property law to push back on ICE operations. This report unpacks the viability of these efforts, from banning new detention centers to barring officers from staging operations on city property.

"Bridget Lavender, a staff attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative, said the federal government could override the city’s moratorium because of the Constitution’s supremacy clause, which states that federal law generally trumps conflicting state or local laws. Because the moratorium is already in place, Lavender said, if DHS wants a permit, 'it would require the federal government to challenge the ordinance in court.'"

Following the 2024 election, we updated our survey of election-related lawsuits to help understand the role of litigation in our elections. This update underscores key themes from our survey of litigation from 2018 to 2022: litigants continue to file election suits at high rates, primarily in state courts, and most often presenting claims related to election administration and the mechanics of voting.

"Eight states will have constitutional amendments backed by Republican lawmakers on the November ballot designed to make clear that only American citizens can vote in elections in those states. But it’s already illegal for noncitizens to vote in elections in those states and at the federal level, and it rarely happens."

Ahead of Election Day 2024, courts—and especially state courts—continue to be inundated with election-related lawsuits. As in 2020, courts may see a deluge of post-election litigation as well. A recurring question in these pre- and post-election cases is whether the plaintiffs waited too long to sue. Under the longstanding equitable doctrine of “laches,” courts sometimes reject claims as untimely even when plaintiffs satisfy the applicable statute of limitations if, in fairness, the claims should have been brought sooner. This Research Note offers a 50-state survey of laches doctrine in the election context.

In roughly half of U.S. states, state constitutions confer rights of direct democracy, allowing the people to make law directly through statutes or constitutional amendments. The exercise of direct democracy rights can lead to power struggles with state legislatures. In particular, state legislatures sometimes respond to successful ballot measures by passing new laws that make ballot measures harder to use. Disputes over these new burdens on direct democracy frequently land in state courts. This Report considers how state courts have responded to these power struggles, with special attention to case law analyzing process-altering legislation under state constitutional direct democracy rights.

This report analyzes an often-overlooked set of state entities that hold substantial power: judicial conduct commissions. These entities, which exist in every state, are primarily designed to protect the public from judicial misconduct and have broad authority to investigate and sanction state judges. As state courts gain increasing attention, the public and scholars should likewise attend to the entities that oversee them.