Our Work

After high-level Trump administration officials said they might send armed officers to the polls during the upcoming midterm elections, and after months of administration efforts to wrest control of some aspects of voting from state officials and limit how people vote, there’s a lot of fear that armed federal officials will disrupt voting and even seize ballots. A number of civil rights and voter advocacy groups and labor unions have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration to bar any such presence, with one suit claiming that “threatening messaging and violent enforcement actions” by administration officials “have created a climate in which voters, especially voters of color, are intimidated and fearful of engaging in the democratic process.”

Last month, the California Supreme Court rebuked a local sheriff’s unprecedented seizure of roughly 650,000 ballots cast in the state’s November 2025 special election. The decisions, Bonta v. Bianco and Cervantes v. Bianco, both held that the sheriff had to follow the state attorney general’s directions to pause his investigation and that the seizure violated the state’s laws for securely handling and storing cast ballots. The court also ordered the ballots returned to local election officials.

On August 20, 2026, the State Democracy Research Initiative filed an amicus brief on behalf of eight legal scholars encouraging the court to be mindful of the Wisconsin Constitution's foundational democratic commitments. The brief explains that this constitutionally embedded democracy principle prevents mapmakers from seeking to suppress electoral competition and accountability and that such anti-competitive gerrymandering claims are justiciable. (The brief expresses no view on the ultimate merits of the plaintiffs' specific claim.)

On July 30, SDRI Legal Director Danielle Friedman spoke with Bob Bauer on Executive Functions. They discussed state criminal statutes that could apply to federal deployment of military or ICE and examine the limits of executive authority in the context of potential federal interference ahead of the November midterms.

Election administrators in the U.S. face persistent financial strain with local governments and their tax bases shouldering most costs while state and federal support remains limited. At the same time, states collect billions each year in unclaimed funds, which are assets like abandoned bank accounts and forgotten insurance proceeds. States are increasingly using unclaimed funds to support public programs like education and housing, but none have earmarked them for election administration.

In a case determining whether the state constitution prohibits election officials from excluding timely-received absentee ballots because they lack a written date on the return envelope, the State Democracy Research Initiative filed an amicus brief arguing that the practice is inconsistent with the Pennsylvania Constitution's democratic commitments.

Unlike the U.S. Constitution, which has no explicit voting rights guarantee, state constitutions both affirmatively grant the right to vote and list explicit, enumerated exceptions from that right. But state actors routinely overstep those bounds—a practice this article refers to as “disenfranchisement creep.” This article identifies two primary ways in which state actors disenfranchise people beyond the scope of state constitutions.

In a case involving a state constitutional challenge to Washington's absentee ballot signature matching requirement, the State Democracy Research Initiative filed an amicus brief urging the Washington Supreme Court to reject the federal Anderson-Burdick standard and apply heightened scrutiny to laws that impair the right to vote. On March 6, 2025, the Washington Supreme Court held that the signature matching process did not violate the Washington Constitution.

This Essay identifies several considerations for state courts to weigh as they decide whether to grant pre-election remedies. These considerations—Purcell principles for state courts—aim to get at each case’s underlying equities and help courts discern whether, on balance, intervention ahead of an election is warranted. The Essay concludes by discussing how the federal Purcell principle impacts U.S. Supreme Court review of state court remedial rulings, such as when litigants ask the Court for emergency relief on the ground that a state court violated the U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause.

In a case involving a state constitutional challenge to the practice of excluding timely-received absentee ballots which lack a correct written date on the return envelope, the State Democracy Research Initiative filed an amicus brief urging the Pennsylvania Supreme Court block this practice. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated the lower court decision blocking the practice on jurisdiction grounds.