Since the 2020 general election, state lawmakers across the country have introduced legislation that would dramatically criminalize voting activity. Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting has collected and analyzed those bills into this first-of-its-kind database.
Reveal used records from LegiScan, which catalogs virtually every bill introduced by state-level lawmakers in all 50 states, to identify and classify the bills, which we have divided into the following categories:
- Empowering a law enforcement agency by giving it more power or resources
- Creating a new enforcement agency
- Creating new criminal penalties
- Increasing penalties for existing offenses
For bills that would create or increase criminal penalties, Reveal further categorized them based on the type of activity they would criminalize:
- Voting
- Voter assistance
- Ballot collection
- Election administration
- Election interference
Each database entry contains information about the bill’s provisions, when it was introduced, the political party of its sponsors and its latest status, according to LegiScan. Bills that are marked as “carried over” were moved into the next legislative session. In some cases, there are repeat entries for a bill because it was introduced multiple times in the same or different legislative chambers. The database logs bills introduced from Nov. 16, 2020, to Oct. 19, 2022.
Read the investigation: State Legislatures Are Dramatically Increasing Law Enforcement Involvement in Elections
Share your story: How Are Voter Suppression Tactics Affecting You and Your Community?
This story was edited by Soo Oh and Maryam Saleh and copy edited by Nikki Frick.
Ese Olumhense can be reached at eolumhense@revealnews.org. Melissa Lewis can be reached at mlewis@revealnews.org. Farah Eltohamy is Reveal’s 2022-23 Roy W. Howard investigative reporting fellow and can be reached at feltohamy@revealnews.org. Soo Oh can be reached at soh@revealnews.org. Follow them on Twitter: @essayolumhense, @iff_or and @farahelto.
Search for the Crime Bills That Target Voting and Elections in Your State is a story from Reveal. Reveal is a registered trademark of The Center for Investigative Reporting and is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization.
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