The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative justices on Monday appeared skeptical of the validity of mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, in a case that could potentially affect hundreds of thousands of voters during the upcoming midterm elections.

The high court heard arguments on whether federal law overrides a Mississippi law that requires mail-in ballots that are postmarked on or before Election Day to be counted as long as they arrive within five business days of the election. Fourteen states have similar laws, which extend a “grace period” to ballots that arrive through the mail after polls close.

Several conservative justices raised concerns with allowing ballots to arrive after Election Day, including whether voters could recall ballots once they’ve shipped them but before they arrive at election offices. Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned whether late-arriving ballots risk undermining election confidence.

“‘The longer after Election Day any significant changes in vote totals take place, the greater the risk that the losing side will cry the election has been stolen,’” Kavanaugh said, quoting from an analysis by a New York University law professor.

The case comes before the Supreme Court at a moment of broader attacks against mail-in voting. Four Republican-led states eliminated their ballot arrival grace periods last year. And Congress is mulling proposals that would restrict voting by mail amid a sprawling debate in the U.S. Senate over legislation demanded by President Donald Trump that would impose sweeping new voter restrictions nationwide. That legislation, known as the SAVE Act, is unlikely to pass because of the filibuster.

The Republican National Committee is challenging Mississippi’s grace period law. The party contends a longstanding federal law that sets the Tuesday after the first Monday in November as Election Day for federal offices preempts state laws that allow ballots cast by Election Day, but received later, to count.

Paul Clement, an attorney for the Republican National Committee, argued the prospect that the outcome of an election could change because of ballots arriving after Election Day would be unacceptable to losing candidates. After the 2020 election, President Donald Trump demanded election officials not count ballots that came in after Election Day. States kept counting ballots.

“If you have an election and the election is going to turn on late-arriving ballots in a way that means what everybody kind of thought was the result on Election Day ends up being the opposite a week later, 21 days later, the losers are not going to accept that result. Full stop,” Clement told the justices.

Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, a Republican who is defending the state law, argues that federal law allows ballots cast by Election Day to be received later. In legal filings, attorneys for the secretary argue both legal and historical precedent support his position. States may decide that voters have made their final choices when ballots are submitted to state officials rather than when they’re received, according to Watson.

On Monday, the justices appeared divided along ideological lines, with conservative justices skeptical of the grace periods and liberal justices more sympathetic. Conservatives hold a 6-3 majority on the court.

“It seems to me that we have a very long history of states having a variety of different ballot receipt deadlines, to include after Election Day,” said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the court’s liberal members.

Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart told the court the dispute is over whether Congress in an 1845 law blocked states from counting ballots cast by Election Day but received later. “No one challenged it until now,” Stewart said.

At least 725,000 ballots were postmarked by Election Day 2024 and arrived within a legally accepted post-election window, The New York Times has reported, citing election officials in 14 of 22 states and territories where late-arriving ballots were accepted that year.

About 30% of voters cast a mail ballot in 2024, according to data gathered by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in October 2024 that federal law requires ballots to be received by Election Day. Trump likewise issued an executive order last year that attempted to require that mail ballots be received by the end of Election Day and to impose other election changes, but much of the order has been blocked by federal courts.

Rick Hasen, a professor and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at the University of California-Los Angeles School of Law, wrote on his Election Law Blog that it was clear from Monday’s arguments that the Supreme Court will be closely divided, “and the case could come out either way.” A decision is expected later in the spring or early summer.

Caleb Hays, chief policy counsel at the Center for Election Confidence, a conservative-leaning legal advocacy group that opposes ballot grace periods, said his organization was pleased that the justices appeared to pick up on the need for a clear end to the voting period. He also welcomed the justices raising the issue of recalling ballots when they are delivered through the mail or by a third-party service like FedEx.

“That brings into question some of the arguments we saw from (Mississippi) on a ballot being final when it is cast and cast includes when it is deposited in a mailbox,” Hays said in an interview.

As the legal challenge made its way through the courts over the past two years, some Republican-led states moved to eliminate their grace periods. Kansas, North Dakota, Ohio and Utah last year moved to require all or nearly all ballots to be in the hands of election officials on Election Day to count.

The states that continue to extend grace periods for ballots arriving after Election Day are Alaska, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia, along with the District of Columbia.

Some local election officials have urged the Supreme Court to uphold ballot grace periods. A decision that strikes down state laws’ grace periods would increase the administrative burdens on many election officials, said a collection of election officials and local governments in California, Massachusetts and Washington in an amicus brief.

“(Grace periods) enable administrators in large and small jurisdictions to do their essential work in a timely and reasonable manner,” the brief says.

If the Supreme Court requires that ballots must arrive on or before Election Day, Clement suggested election officials would have enough time to prepare ahead of November. He said such a decision wouldn’t violate the Purcell principle, a Supreme Court doctrine holding that major changes to election policy and practice shouldn’t be made just before an election because voters could get confused. 

The federal law at issue pertains to general elections, not primary elections, he noted — meaning the court’s decision would apply only to the November election.

“There’s plenty of time,” Clement said.

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators debated Wednesday whether the federal government should change how Americans register to vote and cast a ballot, with Republicans maintaining alterations are necessary to safeguard elections and Democrats arguing a new law would add unnecessary obstacles.

Tensions over the issue were on full display when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said GOP lawmakers describing the bill as a simple voter identification requirement is “bullshit,” shortly before Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee contended it would be “a suicidal move” for his party’s leaders not to find a way forward. 

The legislation, dubbed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or the SAVE America Act, is unlikely to become law without bipartisan backing from at least 60 senators, who would be needed to move past a procedural vote. 

Democrats are not expected to help Republicans with that, especially after Schumer called the legislation “Jim Crow 2.0” and “evil” during a morning press conference with voting rights advocates. 

Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock said during that event GOP lawmakers are acting out of concern they will lose control of Congress following the November midterm elections, due to President Donald Trump’s actions during his second term.  

“The American people have had it with him and with his policies,” Warnock said. “He ran as someone who was going to lower costs, who was going to stay out of endless wars in the Middle East and he is failing. But instead of changing his policies, he’s trying to change the shape of the electorate.”

Problems with lack of birth certificate

New Mexico Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján said if the bill becomes law, it would create difficulties for anyone who doesn’t have access to their birth certificate or a passport, to prove U.S. citizenship when they try to register to vote. 

“What about my Native American brothers and sisters?” he said. “All my brothers and sisters from the First Nations that I’m proud to represent across New Mexico, who may have been born in their home generationally with other family members. They didn’t have a birth certificate.”

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Andy Kim said GOP lawmakers trying to change the voting process during an election year creates a pattern when combined with several Republican state legislatures redrawing U.S. House maps to benefit their candidates. 

“We see this being about having politicians choose the voters instead of voters choosing the politicians,” he said. 

Several Democratic state legislatures have responded to GOP redistricting efforts by redrawing their maps as well. 

Schumer, D-N.Y., said it’s unacceptable that Republicans want every state in the country to submit a list of registered voters to the Department of Homeland Security to run through a database, which he believes is flawed. 

“They’re trying to dupe America. They say, ‘Oh, this is just a voter ID law.’ Bullshit. It is not a voter ID law,” Schumer said. “It is a law that will kick millions of Americans off the voting rolls.”

‘Debate this as long as it takes to get it done’

Utah’s Lee said Republican leaders shouldn’t schedule the procedural vote that requires at least 60 senators to end debate on the bill until they have found some way to move past that step.  

“I think it would be a suicidal move for us as Senate Republicans, for Republicans in general, if we don’t put everything we’ve got into this,” he said. “I think we need to debate this as long as it takes to get it done. And if we’re not there yet, we need to continue debating.”

Lee contended that prolonged debate on the bill would give Republicans time to sway holdouts to their side. 

“This is going to become popular enough that a lot of our colleagues who currently oppose it, I believe, will start to get on board,” he said. 

Every Senate Democrat, along with Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, voted against formally beginning debate on Tuesday. North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis didn’t vote.

Trump wants national limits on voting by mail

Senate debate on the bill dragging out in the days or possibly weeks ahead won’t be confined to what’s currently in the legislation, which the House passed last month.

Trump has asked senators to make three alterations, which they will attempt to incorporate through amendments. 

Missouri Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt said he plans to call for a vote to add nationwide restrictions on mail-in voting instead of leaving the issue to state governments. 

“If you have a hardship because of a disability, or an illness, or because of travel, or you’re a caregiver, or some other hardship the state can identify, you can vote by absentee,” he said. “You have to request it. Then you can vote by absentee.”

Schmitt said the carve-out would also include members of the military. 

Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn said she plans to call up an amendment that could create a nationwide prohibition on gender-affirming surgeries for transgender youth. 

Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, she said, would push for an amendment to block transgender women from competing in women’s sports.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans pressed forward Tuesday with a bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and a photo ID to cast a ballot, despite long odds the legislation will ever become law amid bipartisan opposition. 

The 51-48 vote to formally begin debate on the measure, which GOP lawmakers have named the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or the SAVE America Act, only starts the process. Senators are expected to vote on several amendments in the days, or possibly weeks, ahead. 

But at least 60 lawmakers will be needed to end floor debate, a highly unlikely prospect with Democrats arguing the bill would disenfranchise millions of voters. 

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski was the only Republican to vote against starting debate. North Carolina GOP Sen. Thom Tillis didn’t vote. 

Murkowski wrote in a social media post last month the November midterm elections are “fast approaching” and that implementing “new federal requirements now, when states are deep into their preparations, would negatively impact election integrity by forcing election officials to scramble to adhere to new policies likely without the necessary resources. 

“Ensuring public trust in our elections is at the core of our democracy, but federal overreach is not how we achieve this.”

Trump threatens retaliation

President Donald Trump has made enacting nationwide changes to voting his top legislative priority ahead of the midterm elections, although Republicans swept unified control of government less than two years ago. 

He wrote in a social media post Tuesday morning that he plans to campaign against anyone who doesn’t support the legislation, which the House passed last month.

“Only sick, demented, or deranged people in the House or Senate could vote against THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” he wrote. “If they do, each one of these points, separately, will be used against the user in his/her political campaign for office – A guaranteed loss!”

Dems predict millions kicked off voting rolls

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, of New York, said during floor remarks the legislation would require Americans “to run through an obstacle course of red tape unlike anything we have ever seen in voter registration.”

The bill becoming law, he said, would lead to millions of Americans being kicked off voter rolls due to a requirement that states run their list of registered voters through a “deeply flawed” Department of Homeland Security database.

“If you’re kicked off the rolls, you may never be told,” he said. “There’s no requirement to let you know.”

Schumer argued the bill is less about ensuring only Americans vote in elections and more about Republican concerns they will lose at least one chamber of Congress later this year. 

“It’s funny. I don’t remember MAGA Republicans screaming about stolen elections and voter fraud after the 2024 election that they won,” he said. “Well, the same rules that governed the 2024 election are going to be the ones that govern the 2026 election. The only difference is that this time MAGA Republicans know they’re in trouble politically. So now they’re suddenly saying the system is compromised and broken and it needs to be changed. It’s all lies.”

77 instances of noncitizen voting 

It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and anyone found guilty could face fines and up to a year in prison. There are limited instances of people not eligible to vote actually casting a ballot, according to analysis from the Bipartisan Policy Center of data compiled by the Heritage Foundation, an especially conservative think tank. 

BPC’s examination “found only 77 instances of noncitizens voting between 1999 and 2023” and that “there is no evidence that noncitizen voting has ever been significant enough to impact an election’s outcome.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., reiterated a few hours before the procedural step that “the votes aren’t there” to pass the bill via a talking filibuster, a path several of his members want him to take. 

“So what we are doing is we are having a fulsome debate on the floor of the United States Senate, which is something that I think the Senate has done in the past, and probably should do a lot more of,” he said. “But we’ll have it up. Everybody will have their say. At some point, we’ll have votes.  And we’ll see where the votes are.”

A talking filibuster would require Democratic senators to give a series of floor speeches in order to delay or prevent final passage. That process could tie up the Senate floor for months.

Thune said he wasn’t sure when votes on amendments would begin, but that he expects the process to last “for the foreseeable future.”

“I think at least for right now, there’ll be some flexibility to see where the road leads,” he said. 

Mail-in voting, gender-affirming surgeries, sports

Trump has asked GOP senators to add several provisions to the legislation, including new restrictions on mail-in voting, a federal prohibition on gender-affirming surgeries for transgender youth and a new law barring transgender women from participating in women’s sports. 

West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, Policy Committee chair, said she doesn’t believe the federal government should tell states how to manage mail-in ballots. 

“A lot of states, red states and blue, have more than a majority of the votes that are mail-in ballots,” she said. “So I think we’ve got to be careful there.”

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson said that once debate on the SAVE America Act has concluded, he wants GOP leaders to hold a floor vote on whether to keep the rule that requires at least 60 senators vote to limit debate on bills, known as the legislative filibuster. 

“I think the days of the minority preventing legislation from passing is over. Because Democrat voters, they want their members to end it. Republican voters want us to end it,” he said. “So in the end, it’ll be that public pressure that I think will eventually end the filibuster. And I’d just rather beat them to the punch so we can pass things like SAVE America Act.”

Thune said during an afternoon press conference he believes the 60-vote procedural hurdle should remain in place because “throughout history it’s protected Republicans and conservative priorities and principles a lot more often than it’s protected Democrats.”

Photo ID

The bill would require local election officials to ensure anyone registering to vote proves they are an American, likely by showing a passport or a birth certificate. Then, when people go to cast a ballot by mail, during early voting, or on Election Day, they would need to show a valid photo ID, like a driver’s license or military identification card. 

The legislation would require state governments to submit their voter rolls to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security so its officials can run them through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system to check if anyone already registered isn’t a U.S. citizen. 

The legislation doesn’t provide state or local governments with any extra money or time to implement the changes, if it were to become law. 

The Bipartisan Policy Center writes in a brief about the legislation that the organization “recommends that policymakers avoid making major changes in an election year given the likelihood that they result in administrative errors and create confusion for voters.”

The three BPC experts who analyzed the bill said it “prioritizes expediency over precision.” 

“The act becomes effective on the date of enactment, giving states no time to adjust processes,” they wrote. “It also requires that the U.S. Election Assistance Commission offer implementation guidance to states within just 10 days of enactment.”

Lawsuits

The legislation would give private citizens the ability to sue election officials who register someone without evidence of U.S. citizenship.

Jeffrey Thorsby, legislative director at the National Association of Counties, wrote in a post about the legislation’s impacts that the “liability provisions could discourage election workers and volunteers from serving at a time when many counties already face recruitment challenges.” 

“Currently, the onus on a non-citizen who registers or votes is on the illegal voter,” he wrote. “SAVE America Act proposes a radical change in how we punish fraudulent voting.”

The voting overhaul measure that the U.S. Senate began debating Tuesday would cause major headaches for underfunded state and local election officials, without meaningfully stopping fraud, according to a collection of voting rights advocates and elections officers.

The so-called SAVE America Act, which President Donald Trump is relentlessly pushing, would create chaos for state and local elections administrators by immediately imposing several new requirements without adding funding, former North Carolina elections chief Karen Brinson Bell said on a press call Tuesday organized by Washington U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell.

“I cannot emphasize enough the Herculean effort that the SAVE America Act would present for election officials across this country,” Brinson Bell, who now advises election officials as a co-founder of the group Advance Elections, said. “Please do not set our country or these public servants up for failure. Bring us to the table. Develop this legislation properly and provide adequate funding and resources so we can all succeed.”

No new money

The bill would initially add $35 million in costs for Washington state to administer this year’s midterm elections, Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey said. The measure would cost an estimated additional $12 million annually in presidential election years for the state’s elections administrators, he added.

But it would not provide federal funding for states and localities to meet the new costs.

“When I looked at the SAVE America Act to understand how it would affect election administration, I did a control-F for the dollar sign, and I did not see a single dollar, much less the hundreds of millions needed to implement these changes,” Brinson Bell said.

The bill, which Trump and other proponents say is necessary to stop immigrants from voting, would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. They would also have to provide a photo ID at polling places.

But the measure “is the very definition of a solution in search of a problem,” Kimsey said on Tuesday’s call. Noncitizens voting in federal elections is exceedingly rare.

Barriers for voting by mail

Overall, the bill would make voting more difficult, especially for people who have changed their names, tribal citizens and people without photo ID, participants on the call said. That counters the goal of elections officials: to make voting easier.

“The problem isn’t that the wrong people are voting,” Kimsey said. “The problem is that not enough people are voting.”

The bill would also create barriers for vote-by-mail, which Washington and other states have used for decades. 

The system has increased voter participation and is widely popular across party lines. 

“The state of Washington’s vote-by-mail system is such a strong system,” Cantwell said. “The whole country should be moving more towards that and not away from it.”

Voting integrity

The bill’s backers, including most Republicans in Congress, say it would erect commonsense safeguards to protect U.S. elections.

In a Tuesday floor speech setting up debate on the measure, U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune called it “essential.”

“If there’s anything essential to the integrity of elections, it’s ensuring that those who are registered to vote are eligible to vote – and that those who show up to vote at polling places are … who they say they are,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said.

The way to do that, he added, was to require proof of citizenship and photo identification.

Photo IDs, though, aren’t as universal as commonly thought, League of Women Voters of Maine Executive Director Chrissy Hart said.

Eighteen percent of citizens older than 65 lack a photo ID, as well as 16% of Latino voters, 25% of Black voters and 15% of low-income Americans, Hart said.

Election denial

Kimsey, who identified as a Republican during his first run for office in 1998 and became an independent after the pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol following the 2020 election, was asked if the measure was a continuation of Trump’s efforts to undermine U.S. elections.

He answered that what he deemed the “election denial movement” lost momentum after Trump’s 2024 victory, but that it seemed to be reappearing ahead of the midterms.

“In my view, this is nothing more than a very clumsy — and I hope not effective — but a very clumsy attempt to create chaos in this year’s midterm elections,” he said.

The U.S. Department of Justice has begun connecting its push to obtain sensitive personal data on millions of voters to whether the upcoming midterm elections will be fair and secure, laying the groundwork for the Trump administration to potentially cast doubt on the results.

The Justice Department has sued 29 states and the District of Columbia over their refusal to provide unredacted voter rolls that include the driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers of voters. The department has lost three of those lawsuits so far this year.

But as the Justice Department begins appealing the losses, it has filed emergency motions warning the “security and sanctity of elections” would be questioned in those states — California, Michigan and Oregon — without immediate rulings.

Election experts told Stateline that federal appellate courts are unlikely to move quickly for the Justice Department. Instead, the department’s court filings suggest that without the data, the Trump administration may question the validity of the midterm elections in November.

“Absent a final Court determination on this matter there is no other process to ensure a fair election in 2026,” the Trump administration’s motions say.

President Donald Trump has made identifying noncitizen voting, an extremely rare occurrence, a priority of his administration, and the Justice Department has said the detailed personal data is necessary to ensure states are properly maintaining their voter rolls. At least a dozen Republican-led states have provided the information.

Democratic election officials, and some Republicans, have condemned the demands as an invasion of voters’ privacy and have voiced concerns the Trump administration plans to use the information to target political opponents or create a national voter list. Other Republican election officials and the Trump administration and have downplayed privacy concerns and said the data will help ensure only eligible voters cast ballots.

The DOJ’s sense of urgency comes after the department spent months sending letters to state officials demanding voter data, followed by successive rounds of lawsuits against states that refused to comply — all in what department officials said was the pursuit of noncitizen voters.

“We know this isn’t a big problem nationwide,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former senior trial attorney in the Justice Department’s Voting Section during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.

“We know the states have adequate safeguards,” Becker said. “We see Republicans — Republicans — coming out and saying this repeatedly. So there is no problem that urgently needs to be solved in advance of the election.”

But the Trump administration has increased its attention on elections in recent weeks. In early February, Trump voiced a desire to “nationalize” elections. He demanded Congress pass a proof of citizenship voter registration requirement and strict voter ID rules. The U.S. Senate is expected to debate the bill next week, but it is unlikely to have enough votes to advance.

The FBI has also seized ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, and the Arizona Senate complied with a federal grand jury subpoena for records related to its 2020 audit of that year’s election results in Maricopa County, Arizona.

Michigan responded to the Justice Department in a March 6 court filing by asserting that its case involves no emergency. Lawyers representing Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, wrote that the appeal doesn’t challenge any state election law or rule and that the outcome of the case would have little to no effect on the 2026 election.

In response to an interview request, Benson’s office referred Stateline to a news release that quoted the secretary as urging election officials across the country “to stand up to the federal government’s overreach and to safeguard citizens’ private voting information we’ve been entrusted to protect.”

Oregon Democratic Secretary of State Tobias Read said in an emailed statement to Stateline that he’s “confident in our case, and trust the courts will continue to uphold the Constitution and the privacy rights of all Oregonians.”

California Democratic Secretary of State Shirley Weber didn’t respond to an interview request.

Race against time

Federal judges have so far ruled that even though states must perform maintenance on their voter rolls, federal law doesn’t give the Justice Department authority to obtain full voter lists.

While the Justice Department now claims the security and sanctity of upcoming elections necessitates the need for speed, the department hasn’t alleged any states are violating federal voter list maintenance requirements, said Derek Clinger, senior counsel and director of partnerships at the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

“This is the first time in all the litigation that DOJ has claimed that there’s an urgent need to resolve the cases,” said Clinger, who is tracking the voter data lawsuits.

Even if courts ultimately determine that states must provide the voter data, it’s not clear that the Justice Department could make effective use of it before the midterms.

Federal law generally prohibits states from conducting significant purges of registered voters less than 90 days before primary and general elections. For example, that period will begin in Michigan on May 6 ahead of the state’s Aug. 4 primary election.

The Justice Department has asked for all court documents in its Michigan appeal to be filed by April 1. Even if the appellate court immediately ruled in the department’s favor, only 35 days would be left until the pre-primary blackout period.

Lawyers for Michigan wrote in its court filing that it is “dubious” that any serious assessment of the state’s 7.3 million voters could occur in that time frame.

Still, Rosario Palacios, a naturalized U.S. citizen who leads the good-government group Common Cause Georgia, said she’s worried the federal government could wrongly flag her or others like her as noncitizens if the Justice Department eventually obtains her state’s unredacted voter roll.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security operates a powerful online program called SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) that it uses to verify citizenship. It has previously invited states to run their voter rolls through the program, and the Trump administration in September confirmed the Justice Department is sharing state voter roll data with Homeland Security. But SAVE has faced criticism from some election officials for mistakenly flagging U.S. citizens for review.

After the department sued Georgia for refusing to turn over its data, Palacios and Common Cause intervened in the lawsuit to oppose the demand.

Palacios said in an interview she’s worried some may choose not to participate in the election. “The fear alone of this is going to make people withdraw.”

Some GOP states share voter data

The Justice Department has offered few details about how it intends to analyze the voter data it obtains. The agency didn’t answer questions from Stateline and declined to comment.

Idaho Republican Secretary of State Phil McGrane last month said he wouldn’t turn over voter data. McGrane declined an interview request, but in a Feb. 26 letter to the Justice Department he raised concerns about data security.

“While I appreciate the Department’s representations that Idaho’s data will be safeguarded, I cannot take that now-apparent risk in the absence of clear legal duty to do so,” McGrane wrote.

Some Republican election officials have decided to share their state’s data, however.

Eric Neff, the acting chief of the Justice Department’s Voting Section, wrote in a March 2 court filing that 18 states had either shared voter data or planned to do so soon. He didn’t name those states.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, which tracks the voter data requests, has identified at least a dozen states that have provided the data: Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

Two of those states — Alaska and Texas — provided their voter rolls after signing a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, with the Justice Department.

The document, marked confidential, says that after the state provides its voter roll, the department agrees to test, analyze and assess the information. Each state agrees to “clean” its voter roll within 45 days by removing any ineligible voters. States would then resubmit their list.

Tennessee Elections Coordinator Mark Goins, who works under Tennessee Republican Secretary of State Tre Hargett, said in an interview that the state had shared its voter data after concluding that DOJ was entitled to it as part of its authority to enforce federal voting law. But Goins said Tennessee had decided against signing the memorandum of understanding because of concerns that the agreement conflicted with the National Voter Registration Act, which sets rules on when election officials can remove voters from their lists.

“When you’re dealing with this much data, and we have 4 million registered voters here, there could be a false flag and you certainly don’t remove anyone improperly,” Goins said.

In Texas, it’s unclear when the Justice Department will provide feedback on the state’s voter list. The state is currently in the preelection blackout period on sweeping changes to its voter registration list ahead of a May 26 primary runoff election, a spokesperson for Texas Republican Secretary of State Jane Nelson told Stateline.

Texas already ran its voter roll of more than 18 million voters through Homeland Security’s SAVE program last year, identifying 2,724 potential noncitizens registered to vote. County election officials were then left to investigate the flagged voters.

Christopher McGinn, executive director of the Texas Association of County Election Officials, said he’s unsure what would happen now, given that the state’s voter roll was recently examined by SAVE.

“Especially since those noncitizens were, in theory, cleaned up,” McGinn said.

In Alaska, the decision to share voter data has produced blowback from some state lawmakers. The state constitution guarantees a right to privacy that “shall not be infringed.”

Alaska Director of Elections Carol Beecher faced skeptical lawmakers during hearings last week that probed her refusal to waive attorney-client privilege to divulge the legal advice she received before providing the voter roll. In response to questions from Stateline, Beecher’s office referred back to her remarks to lawmakers.

“At this point, I am not willing to waive that privilege,” Beecher said at an Alaska Senate hearing.

Alaska state Sen. Bill Wielechowski, a Democrat who was among those who questioned Beecher, in an interview predicted the state will soon face lawsuits challenging the data sharing. He also said lawmakers are looking into pursuing legislation that would direct state officials to seek the return of the information from the Justice Department.

“I just think there’s a total lack of trust in what the federal government will do with this information,” Wielechowski said.

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — The Democratic National Committee Tuesday filed a lawsuit in federal court aiming to force the Trump administration to admit if it plans to send armed federal law enforcement or U.S. troops to polling locations in the upcoming midterm elections. 

The suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia charges that 11 Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, requests submitted to the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense by the DNC in October have gone unanswered, a violation of public records law. 

“To ensure that the American people obtain timely knowledge of potential threats to free and fair elections and to enable the DNC to take appropriate action to ensure voting rights are protected, the DNC now seeks this Court’s aid to enforce FOIA requirements,” according to the suit. 

The suit was assigned to federal Judge Beryl A. Howell, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

Voting machines

The suit details how the FOIA requests were filed after comments from President Donald Trump to the New York Times that he regretted not using the U.S. military to seize voting machines after he lost the 2020 presidential election. 

“These and many other actions have raised serious concerns among voters across the country that the President will order armed federal agents or troops to polling places, drop boxes, and election offices, … and will send FBI agents or Justice Department officials to interfere with the orderly administration and certification of elections,” according to the complaint.

The suit also cites comments from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt that she “couldn’t guarantee” that federal law enforcement officers would not be at polling locations this November. 

“Donald Trump wants to bully and cheat his way through a midterm election that he knows Republicans will lose, but we won’t let him,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement. “The DNC will stand on the side of voters and use every tool in our arsenal to stop voter suppression and intimidation before it can even begin.”

Are there records?

It’s also possible that no records exist.

Congressional Democrats have pressed Trump officials during hearings on plans to send agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to polling locations. 

Both heads of those agencies, ICE acting director Todd Lyons and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott, said there were no plans to send any of their agents or officers to polling locations. 

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who is leaving her post at the end of month and being replaced by Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin, was also pressed by Democrats. 

She said there were no plans for ICE agents, but also asked Democrats if they plan for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, something that is already illegal and rarely occurs. 

But during the hearing, Noem would not commit to issuing a directive barring immigration agents from polling locations. 

Several Democratic states are moving to bar federal immigration agents from being near polling places and other election sites, amid persistent worries that President Donald Trump will use federal law enforcement or the military to disrupt the midterm elections.

Measures to restrict federal agents from operating at or near election-related locations have been offered in more than half a dozen states, according to a Stateline count. While the proposals vary, they broadly seek to combat the prospect of chaotic confrontations between federal agents and voters this November.

A federal law dating to the end of the Civil War already bans sending the military or other “armed men” to polling places, except to repel armed enemies of the United States. The U.S. Constitution also gives states — not the president or federal government — the responsibility for running elections.

But Trump’s calls to nationalize elections, his promise to impose voting restrictions with or without Congress, and his history of working to overturn the 2020 presidential election is prompting some Democratic state lawmakers to act. Adding to lawmakers’ fears is the FBI’s January seizure of ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, and U.S. Department of Justice lawsuits against dozens of states for copies of their voter rolls that include sensitive personal information.

The president’s party typically loses ground in Congress in midterm elections. Given that, Democrats fear Trump is laying the groundwork to block or cast doubt on a losing outcome.

“When the president says he’s going to break the law, I actually believe him,” said California state Sen. Tom Umberg, a Democrat who has introduced legislation that would prohibit federal immigration enforcement within 200 feet of polling places. He said Trump’s call to “nationalize” elections was the “triggering event” that prompted him to offer the bill.

Legislation to restrict immigration enforcement or the presence of federal forces near polling places and other election sites has been offered or announced in California, Connecticut, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington. A bill has also been introduced in Kansas, which has a Democratic governor, but the measure is unlikely to pass in the Republican-controlled legislature.

The bills focus on immigration enforcement, but the New Mexico legislation would go further, prohibiting the military or any armed federal personnel from polling locations.

The Trump administration and its supporters have suggested that the president might order U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to the polls. After former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in early February said ICE will surround polling places, White House press secretary Karolina Leavitt said she couldn’t guarantee an ICE agent wouldn’t be near a polling place

Trump allies have also circulated a draft executive order that Trump could sign declaring a national emergency and attempting to assert broad powers over elections, The Washington Post reported last week. Trump told reporters on Friday that he had never heard of the draft order.

But during a conference call last week for election officials from across the country, the Department of Homeland Security committed to not placing ICE agents at any polling places in 2026, according to both Republican and Democratic secretaries of state who were on the call.

Homeland Security told Stateline in a statement that ICE isn’t planning operations “targeting” polling places, but could arrest individuals if an active public safety threat endangered a polling location.

“There’s no reason for us to deploy to a polling facility,” ICE’s current leader, Todd Lyons, told Congress in February.

Democratic state lawmakers calling for election-related restrictions on ICE in state law say they don’t want to take any chances.

“I think this is just prudent, wise policy to do what we all know is right, which is to protect polling places,” said Virginia Democratic state Del. Katrina Callsen, the chief sponsor of a bill that would prohibit federal civil immigration enforcement within 40 feet of polling places and voting counting sites.

The New Mexico legislature in February passed a measure that largely mirrors restrictions in federal law against armed federal personnel at polling places. The bill is now before Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

The bill says officials generally cannot order or bring troops or other armed federal agents to polling places or parking areas for polling places beginning 28 days before Election Day, when early in-person voting begins. It also would prohibit officials from changing who is qualified to vote contrary to New Mexico law or from imposing election rules that conflict with state law. Violators would be guilty of a felony.

New Mexico lawmakers offered the legislation the day after Trump’s initial remarks about wanting to nationalize elections. New Mexico Democratic state Sen. Katy Duhigg, the bill’s lead sponsor, said she wanted a measure that wouldn’t run into issues with the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause, which says federal law supersedes state law.

“I think a lot of states, frankly, are trying to figure out what to do right now,” Duhigg said, adding that courts will likely be asked to sort through new state-level limits on federal forces. “This seems like a reasonable approach to try.”

Republican lawmakers opposed

Some Republican state lawmakers are dismissive of the Democratic measures, casting them as unnecessary.

“I just cannot imagine the president, as much as you might dislike him, ordering federal troops to seize New Mexico elections by armed force,” New Mexico Republican state Sen. William Sharer, the minority leader, said during debate. Sharer didn’t respond to an interview request from Stateline.

In Washington state, one bill would require local election officials to block anyone from accessing areas where ballots are processed or counted for the purposes of immigration enforcement. Law enforcement could be allowed access with a judicial warrant or court order, however.

Washington state Rep. Jim Walsh, a Republican who also chairs the state party, characterized the proposal as “fearmongering” and a solution in search of a problem — unless its supporters acknowledge that people in the country illegally are voting. And he claims Washington doesn’t have the authority to legally bar ICE from areas of an election office.

Washington Democratic state Sen. Drew Hansen, the bill’s lead sponsor, said election workers counting ballots deserve to be able to perform their task without interference from federal immigration authorities. Hansen noted that ICE “does not have a perfect track record, to say the least, of only detaining extremely dangerous, violent noncitizens.”

More than 170 U.S. citizens have been held by immigration agents during Trump’s second term, ProPublica reported in October. A December report by Democrats on the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations identified at least seven U.S. citizens who were held for more than 24 hours.

In Arizona, some Republicans want to encourage an ICE presence at the polls. In February, Republican state Sen. Jake Hoffman offered a bill that would require counties to sign an agreement with ICE to provide a federal law enforcement presence at polling places.

Hoffman didn’t respond to an interview request from Stateline. A scheduled committee hearing on the measure was canceled in February, likely killing the bill. Still, the underlying proposal could be resurrected, Arizona Mirror reported.

“Arizonans deserve to know that election laws are not just written in statute but actually enforced in practice,” Hoffman said in a news release.

Existing federal laws against federal election interference are specific and straightforward, said Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the Voting Rights and Elections program at the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. States such as Arizona don’t get a “free pass” to violate federal law, either, he said.

Options exist to hold people accountable under federal law, Morales-Doyle said. If ICE agents deployed to polling places, federal prosecutors would have five years to bring charges against ICE personnel under the statute of limitations. While the Justice Department under the Trump administration would be unlikely to bring charges, he noted, the time limit extends into the next presidential administration.

Still, Morales-Doyle said he understands why people are skeptical, given how ICE and other elements of the Trump administration have behaved.

“So it is, I think, important to think about what state legal mechanisms there are for holding people accountable,” he said.

Local enforcement

Some of the state legislative proposals would place local election workers on the front lines of resisting federal interference.

The Washington state measure would instruct multiple election workers, when possible, to document incidents in which they deny permission to enter areas that are off limits to immigration enforcement. The New Mexico bill would allow county clerks and voters who experienced intimidation to sue over alleged violations, in addition to state officials.

The California legislation goes perhaps the furthest in empowering local election officials. It would allow county election officials to keep polls open if they determine that voting was disrupted because of violations of a ban on federal immigration enforcement nearby.

Some local election officials appear hesitant to discuss the proposals and whether they are preparing for the possibility of federal interference. The president of the California Association of County Clerks and Elected Officials and the clerks chair of New Mexico Counties, a statewide advocacy group for county officials, didn’t respond to requests for interviews. The Washington State Association of County Auditors declined to comment.

More broadly, other election officials have said the possibility of federal interference is informing their preparations for the midterm elections. Scott McDonell, the Democratic clerk of Dane County, Wisconsin, which includes Madison, told Stateline in February that while Trump’s desire to “nationalize” elections isn’t possible under the Constitution, he is paying attention to agencies that answer to Trump.

“What does the president actually control? The FBI, National Guard, ICE, DOJ in general. That’s far more concerning,” McDonell said. (State national guards can be federalized by the president.)

Barbara Richardson Crouch, the Republican registrar of voters in the Town of Sprague, Connecticut, said she prefers no law enforcement at polling places — whether local, state or federal.

In Connecticut, legislators plan to offer a measure to restrict federal immigration enforcement within 250 feet of a polling place or other election site. Crouch, who has been involved in election administration for nearly two decades, said she has long dealt with concerns surrounding law enforcement at voting sites, but that those fears in the past centered on state and local police.

Crouch said a state trooper typically comes through her polling place in the early morning as election workers are setting up, and then again when polls close. Law enforcement is on call, but Crouch said she believes that if someone sees law enforcement, it sends a message that the area isn’t safe.

“I personally have never liked police at election places, even local police,” Crouch said.

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

President Donald Trump promoted his second-term record in a wide-ranging speech at the Port of Corpus Christi in Texas on Friday, building on themes from his State of the Union address earlier in the week.

But he did not issue a highly anticipated endorsement just days before a heated U.S. Senate primary that’s pitted incumbent John Cornyn against two challengers, state Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.

Before the event, Trump told reporters he had “pretty much” decided on who he would endorse in the midterm election contest, but wouldn’t do so Friday, according to a White House pool report.

While leaving the White House en route to Texas earlier in the day, Trump also suggested he might direct a “friendly takeover” of Cuba, saying the Cuban American community would appreciate such action.

“We could very well end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba after many, many years,” he told reporters. “They’re in big trouble, and we could very well (do) something good, I think, very positive for the people that were expelled or worse, from Cuba that live here.”

Tensions are high between the United States and Cuba. The Cuban government said Thursday its border patrol killed four Cuban expatriates living in the United States who sought to infiltrate the country in a speedboat.

Little discussion of energy policy

The Texas speech was advertised as an address on energy, and Trump spoke in front of signs reading “American Energy Dominance” and against a backdrop of oil tankers. 

But he hardly mentioned the issue apart from short sections at the start and end of his remarks in which he claimed credit for lowering gas prices. 

Instead, the president jumped from topic to topic, defending his administration’s controversial record on immigration enforcement and a military operation in Venezuela while attacking Democrats as out of touch and ramping up calls for election administration changes he said would keep the party from winning future elections. 

Among them are the House-passed SAVE America Act, which would require the public to produce a passport or birth certificate in most cases to register to vote. While it has little chance of Senate passage, Trump has continued to advocate for it.

He claimed, without evidence, that Democrats can only win elections by cheating. If Congress makes changes to national elections laws, the party would be shut out, he said.

“They will never win because their policy is no good,” he said. “They want men playing in women’s sports. They want transgender for everyone. They want open borders so that the world’s criminals can pour into our country, which we’ve done a good job. I’ll tell you what: ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has done such a great job.”

Midterm stakes

Trump joked early in the appearance that he was advised to not make political statements.

But several of his digressions were focused on elections this year and beyond.

After exulting, in sometimes exaggerated language, his record through one year of unified GOP control, he said it was crucial for Republicans to maintain their majorities in the U.S. House and Senate. 

Noting that Democratic members did not stand and applaud at several points of his State of the Union address, a point that Republicans have seized upon repeatedly as a campaign issue in the days since the speech, Trump said the Democrats were “crazy.”

“They’re crazy,” he said. “We got to win midterms. We brought this country back. We don’t want to lose the midterms. We got to win the midterms.”

Election forecasters project the most likely outcome of November’s midterms is for Democrats to gain control of the House while Republicans keep the Senate. Very few seats are seen as toss-ups.

Trump also teased a potential third presidential term, which would violate the Constitution’s prohibition of more than two terms. He said he was entitled to another term because an election was “stolen” from him, a reference to the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden and ever since has claimed, without evidence, wrongly decided.

“Maybe we do one more term. Should we do one more?” he asked the crowd. “Well, we’re entitled to it because they cheated like hell in the second.”

Texas Senate GOP battle

In the Senate contest, Trump shouted out Cornyn, Paxton and Hunt, without indicating which he might favor.

Election Day is Tuesday, though with three major candidates, it is likely headed for a May runoff between Cornyn and Paxton.

Trump wore a version of his signature red hat with the phrase “Gulf of America” across the front instead of the usual “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan.

Trump signed an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico early in his second term. Corpus Christi’s port is on the gulf.

Venezuela 

At the open and close of the roughly hourlong speech, Trump promoted his energy policy and criticized Biden for regulations that Trump said slowed energy production. 

By boosting production and bringing in oil from Venezuela after deposing leftist President Nicolás Maduro in January, Trump said he has brought down the price of gas and consumer products across the board.

Biden and congressional Democrats “waged a radical-left war on American oil and natural gas like you’ve never seen before,” he said. “They were killing our country…. All of that changed my first day back in office.”

The latest government statistics, though, show that energy costs in January were about the same as they were when Trump took office, dropping only .1%, while inflation in the economy as a whole stubbornly continues at about 2.4%.

U.S. involvement in Venezuela, following Maduro’s capture, would also help spur the energy sector, Trump said. 

The new government, led by Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, has been receptive to selling crude oil to the United States, where it will be refined, Trump said Friday. The arrangement would benefit both countries, he said.

WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats will spend billions of dollars and countless hours campaigning throughout the country ahead of November’s midterm elections, even though control of Congress likely will be decided by a relatively small number of toss-up races and the voters who actually turn out to cast a ballot for their preferred candidate.

There are just four Senate races out of 35 and 18 House districts out of 435 where each candidate has even odds of winning, according to analysis from The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. The rest are categorized as leaning, likely or solidly for one party or the other. Some ratings potentially will still shift in a turbulent election year. 

When combined with the generally low turnout for midterm elections, which only topped 50% once during the last century, an especially narrow margin of Americans could determine whether President Donald Trump and Republicans retain their trifecta political control of Washington for the last two years of Trump’s term.

A Senate flip from Republican to Democratic control would have sweeping impacts, including which nominees for vacancies in the Trump administration, federal judgeships and any openings on the Supreme Court are confirmed. 

A House shift from red to blue would likely determine whether Trump and possibly members of his Cabinet face impeachment proceedings in that chamber. 

The most likely outcome experts see at this early stage is for Republicans to lose the House and keep the Senate, possibly with a slimmer majority in the upper chamber. However, that could change in the months ahead as primary election results determine which candidates advance to the November general elections. 

The first primaries are scheduled for March 3 and roll through September, with 16 in June alone.

Highly publicized efforts by several Republican and Democratic state legislatures to redraw the boundaries of their U.S. House seats could also be a variable. But, so far, neither party has gained any real advantage, according to analysis from Erin Covey, Cook Political Report’s editor for the House.

“While it’s not clear how many states will have new maps in 2026, we project that the likeliest scenario is a wash, with neither party netting seats due to redistricting,” she wrote. 

The stakes will be high for the handful of competitive general election races and the attention there will be intense. Leaders from both political parties, as well as outside groups, are likely to focus their spending and campaign ads on those relatively few contests and voters that will determine control of Congress. 

Trump impeachment fears

Trump has repeatedly lamented the historic norm that a president’s party tends to lose seats during the midterms, including in January when he addressed House Republicans at the Kennedy Center.  

“Whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat, whoever wins the presidency, the other party wins the midterm,” he said. “And it doesn’t make sense because … we’ve had the most successful first year of any president in history.”

Trump also warned that if Republicans lose the House, he’ll face impeachment proceedings for the third time. He was impeached twice during his first administration.

“You got to win the midterms because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just going to be, I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” he said. “I’ll get impeached.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., are confident GOP candidates will win enough races to ensure they maintain control over what bills come to the floor and which are held back from debate. 

“I think they’re going to give it to the grown-ups,” Johnson said during a press conference in early February. “I think the Republicans will be able to continue and grow our majority to keep governing.” 

Johnson said during a separate press conference he believes Americans should have confidence in the results of the midterm elections, but pressed for the Senate to pass a new, nationwide voter ID requirement that House lawmakers recently approved.

“I think we can trust the outcome of the election but what I will tell you is there is still a great concern that in certain pockets of the country that there’s not strict enforcement of the laws,” Johnson said. 

It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and anyone found guilty could face fines and up to a year in prison. There are limited instances of people not eligible to vote actually casting a ballot, according to analysis from the Bipartisan Policy Center of data compiled by the Heritage Foundation, an especially conservative think tank. 

BPC’s examination “found only 77 instances of noncitizens voting between 1999 and 2023” and that “there is no evidence that noncitizen voting has ever been significant enough to impact an election’s outcome.”

Democrats battle for control

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, both from New York, are equally as confident as their GOP counterparts that Democrats will regain power, though primary elections are a factor.  

Jeffries said during a mid-February press conference he supports every single House Democrat seeking reelection, calling primaries “a reality” of the country’s political system while also taking a swipe at the Senate. 

“Every two years we have to go back to the people to make an argument, to persuade them to renew our two-year employment contract. That’s just a way of life,” he said. “It must be nice to have a six-year term. But we don’t have the luxury, so that’s going to mean in many districts across the country that there will be active primaries.”

Democrats need to pick up four more Senate seats to retake control of that chamber, particularly long odds given this year’s map. 

The Cook Political Report classifies Senate races in Georgia, Maine, Michigan and North Carolina as toss-ups, giving Democrats two possible additions if they can hold onto the open seat in the Wolverine State and Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia secures reelection. 

The open New Hampshire seat leans toward remaining in the hands of a Democrat, while Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan and Ohio Sen. Jon Husted’s seats lean toward those Republicans securing reelection. 

The open Minnesota seat will likely remain blue, the report forecasts. The open Iowa seat and Texas are likely to stay Republican. The remainder of the Senate campaigns are rated as solid for Democrats or Republicans. 

Besides the 18 House seats categorized as toss-ups by Cook, another 14 lean toward Democrats and four lean toward Republicans. That means just 8% of House races are truly or somewhat competitive, though that is likely to fluctuate after the primaries determine which candidates advance to the general election. 

The GOP holds a very thin 218-214 House majority, with three vacancies, making even a few Republican losses highly problematic for that party’s leadership team and beneficial for Democrats. 

‘Even a few seats might make a difference’

Timothy M. Hagle, associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa, said during midterm elections “the party that’s not in control of the White House usually does pretty well, picks up some seats and so forth.

“And so, given how closely divided the U.S. House and Senate are, even a few seats might make a difference.”

Hagle said people who don’t feel strongly about one political party or another, often referred to as independent or swing voters, will expect candidates to provide solutions for “kitchen table issues,” like jobs, health care and the cost of living. 

“You’ve got to reach beyond your base if you expect to win an election,” he said.

But Hagle noted it’s increasingly difficult for politicians to convince people to vote, even as the internet and social media have become woven into everyday life, giving candidates a better chance to have their messages heard directly. 

Voter turnout data from the University of Florida Election Lab shows fewer than half of eligible voters cast ballots in midterm elections during the last century, with the exception of 2018, when it reached a peak of 50.1%. 

“And one aspect of this that’s a little more on the modern side is that our politics today is so partisan, it’s hyper-partisan, and I think it has turned a lot of people off,” Hagle said. “And so they really just don’t want to get involved in it.”

When that’s rolled in with mid-cycle redistricting in several states and the longer term decline in competitive seats due to gerrymandering, Hagle said, it’s led some politicians to change how they communicate with voters. 

“You do see attempts by the parties to talk about … things they’ve accomplished,” he said. “Republicans are in control, so they have to do this. And Democrats will say, ‘Well, here’s sort of what we want to do.’ But one problem there is that it’s often easier to motivate people through fear.”

“In other words, if a party is doing a good job, people will say, ‘Okay, good. That’s sort of what you were hired to do. So keep at it.’ Whereas if you say, ‘Oh, this party, if you leave them in control or put them in control, they’re going to do these horrible things.’ That tends to motivate,” Hagle added. “And that’s one of the reasons why you see such toxic messaging.”

WASHINGTON — Republicans, Democrats and the White House are methodically, calmly inching toward a common goal: agreeing on a thick package of laws that would do something quickly about slowing housing costs and boosting supply.

There’s no talk of gridlock here. No partisan sniping. Just an under the radar effort to show constituents in an election year that their lawmakers realize there’s a big problem when it comes to buying homes.

That’s why the House earlier this month passed its version of housing reform with only nine dissenting votes. The Senate committee writing similar legislation approved it unanimously last year.

While there are still some obstacles ahead before anything reaches President Donald Trump’s desk, what’s happening is almost a throwback to the days when getting 80% of one’s plan was a big victory, a policy prize to tout back home as midterm elections near.

“There is no silver bullet for fixing this problem,” said Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., chairman of the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee. 

But, he added, “I think that this bill, this legislation, includes a range of meaningful housing reforms that will add to housing supply and ultimately decrease housing costs.”

Housing shortage 

The House and Senate bills have a common purpose, said Emma Waters, senior policy analyst at Washington’s Bipartisan Policy Center. “Both bills really are pushing to make it easier to build more affordable homes,” she said. 

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., a member of the House Financial Services Committee, explained the House bill this way: “It ensures that every dollar we do spend goes further.”

An analysis by the Zillow Group, a real estate company that researches home prices and trends, last summer found that in 2023, about 1.4 million new homes were added to the housing stock, but there were 1.8 million newly formed families.

As a result, the housing shortage was up to 4.7 million units. Other estimates put it as high as 7 million.

The typical home price in January in the United States was $359,078, up 0.2% from a year earlier, Zillow found. Prices depend on a wide variety of factors, including labor costs, cost of materials, interest rates, supply and demand and more.

What government can do

The congressional legislation tries to help ease supply and stabilize prices as much as the government can at this point. 

The House and Senate bills share several similar provisions. The  Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based research organization, estimated that the House bill includes pieces of at least 43 different House or Senate bills, 27 of which have had bipartisan support.

Under the House plan, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development would update the department’s construction standards for manufactured housing. The Senate bill has similar provisions.

Rep. John Rose, R-Tenn., a housing subcommittee member, explained the problem: “Municipalities across the country have restricted or outright banned homes built on permanent steel chassis. The result has been less construction, higher costs, and fewer opportunities for working families to own where they live.”

The House bill would provide money for “pattern books” for such housing that would feature pre-approved plans that could speed up the approval process.

The legislation would also provide “a lot of provisions to make it easier for state and local governments to reduce regulatory barriers,” said Waters.

The bills would allow money from Community Development Block Grants, which help fund neighborhood projects, to better support housing production.

The Senate bill would reward CDBG recipients that have, unrelated to their other CDBG projects, increased their housing production in the previous year. 

As a reward for building more housing in the previous year, those jurisdictions would receive additional CDBG funding, but there are still restrictions on how those funds can be used. 

The House bill, though, would change the restriction so that CDBG money could be used for housing construction.

Help for consumers

Housing experts believe a reason landlords balk is they’re reluctant to endure the government’s inspection process; the bills would streamline that process. Landlords would get incentives to accept tenants with rent vouchers.

The HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which aids state and local efforts to provide housing for lower income families, would also get a makeover of sorts in the bills. 

For instance, the House bill says environmental impact statements would no longer be needed for many projects, and it would be easier to tap money from the HOME budget.

Also likely to help consumers: making it easier for banks, usually community institutions that focus on local needs, to invest in more affordable housing. The House bill would raise the public investment welfare cap, allowing more such investments.

Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., was enthusiastic about this provision. “Our bill helps banks access stable deposit funding, streamlines the exam process that’s tailored particularly for our vital community banks, and helps promote more community banks to do what they do best, lend locally and support their communities,” said Hill, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, in a statement.

What’s ahead 

The banking provision is one of the few major areas where the Senate and House disagree. There’s concern among some Democrats that the House bill lifts too many bank regulatory barriers.

“We have a bipartisan bill with unanimous support in the Senate that will help build more housing and lower costs for the American people. I’m glad to see the House move forward on housing proposals,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee.

But, she said, “House Republicans should not hold housing relief hostage to push forward several bank deregulatory bills that will make our community banks more fragile while harming consumers, small businesses, and economic growth.”

Also having potential to stymie negotiations is the White House’s eagerness to ban institutional investors from buying single family homes. There’s not much congressional support for that idea.

Trump last month issued an executive order telling “key agencies to issue guidance preventing relevant Federal programs from approving, insuring, guaranteeing, securitizing, or facilitating sales of single-family homes to institutional investors.”

Staying upbeat

There’s still a sense in the Capitol that Republicans and Democrats will come together on a major housing bill, particularly since Congress and the White House agree on most key provisions and leading interest groups are helping push legislation forward.

The National Association of Realtors has been enthusiastic about the House and Senate bills. 

 “By addressing barriers at every level of government, the legislation will make it faster and cheaper to build new homes,” the organization said after the House passed the housing reform  bill. The Realtors had similar praise for the Senate version.

The Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition also liked the House bill, as CEO Emily Cadik called it “a set of common sense, bipartisan housing proposals that would increase the supply of affordable housing.”

Most in Washington who follow housing policy closely are upbeat about the legislation’s prospects.

“It’s all pretty positive stuff,” said Waters.