Election Administration and Voting Rights

States administer federal elections, while Congress may regulate the times, places, and manner of congressional elections. The National Voter Registration Act sets the federal floor for registration, and the Election Assistance Commission issues guidance to states without holding enforcement power. For the 2024 general election, 211 million citizens were active registered voters, or 86.6 percent of the citizen voting-age population. Election offices processed 103 million registration transactions in that cycle and sent 40 million confirmation notices. Registration runs almost entirely through remote and agency channels: in 2022, motor vehicle offices accounted for 55 percent of applications and in-person filings for 5.9 percent. Audits searching for noncitizens on the rolls have repeatedly returned counts in the tens or low hundreds per state, against registration bases in the millions. Between 9 and 12 percent of voting-age citizens report that they cannot readily produce the documents that federal proposals would accept as proof of citizenship. Without new federal law the field is diverging: twelve states now require documentary evidence of citizenship in at least some cases, courts have struck down parts of these requirements in Kansas and New Hampshire, and federal data-matching against the Department of Homeland Security's SAVE database is expanding despite documented errors.

• Much better · 0.93 previous scale

  Size: medium
  National Popular Vote

  Electing the President by nationwide popular vote, so that every ballot carries the same weight wherever it is cast.

  Presidential election system Advocacy group
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  Size: small
  SAVE America Act

  A federal requirement to prove citizenship and identity when registering and when voting, brought into force five weeks before the midterm election.

  Voter registration and eligibility Government