With less than eight months to go before the November midterms, Republican lawmakers around the country are racing to change election laws.
In 14 states, Republican lawmakers so far have advanced 36 restrictive voting bills through state legislatures, according to the Voting Rights Lab, a group working to expand access to the ballot.
This is the second year that Republicans have taken aim at election laws since the 2020 general election. While many of last year's bills sought to tighten access to the ballot, many in this year's batch focus on how elections are run. Bills pending in Kansas and Georgia, for instance, establish detailed chain-of-custody procedures that election workers must follow for handling ballots.
"We're seeing these types of bills that are … feeding into the narrative that election administrators need to be more closely monitored," Liz Avore, vice president of law and policy at the Voting Rights Lab, told CNN.
The bills are part of a continued effort by Republicans to tighten access to the ballot box and tweak election procedures amid pressure following Joe Biden's 2020 victory. Former President Donald Trump and his allies have falsely attributed his loss in key states to election fraud.
In Arizona, where Biden won by more than 10,000 votes, Republicans introduced more than 100 election-related bills. A few dozen remain active, including proposals that would ban drive-thru voting, limit the use of drop boxes and make it easier to cancel voter registrations.
Arizona isn't alone.
Republican lawmakers in the Michigan House, for instance, recently approved a new round of election restrictions, including a provision that would bar election clerks from sending unsolicited absentee ballot applications to voters. Biden won the state by more than 154,000 votes.
"Michigan elections are vulnerable," Republican state Rep. Andrew Beeler said during the House's floor debate, the Detroit Free Press reported.
The measures, however, face a certain veto from Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. So, Republican activists are circulating petitions that would allow them to take advantage of an unusual quirk in Michigan law. If a petition for changes to the law is signed by 340,047 people, all that's required to implement those changes is the state legislature's approval – sweeping past Whitmer and her veto pen, as CNN's Eric Bradner recently wrote.
This all comes ahead of November, when the stakes are high for both political parties.
The President's party typically loses ground in midterm elections, and control of the House and Senate could flip from Democrats to Republicans. In addition, 36 governors' seats are on the ballot this year.
