Author

Zachary Roth

Zachary Roth

Zachary Roth is the National Democracy Reporter for States Newsroom.

Americans are worried about democracy. You wouldn’t know it from the GOP debate.

By: - August 24, 2023

There’s a growing feeling, among both experts and ordinary Americans, that our democracy isn’t functioning well — and even that it’s under threat. “American democracy is cracking,” the Washington Post reported August 18. “I’m terrified,” one democracy expert told the paper. “I think we are in bad shape, and I don’t know a way out.” […]

Changes in state election laws have little impact on results, new study finds

By: - July 17, 2023

In recent years, U.S. politics has been consumed by partisan fights over states’ election policies. But a new study by two political scientists is causing a stir by finding that state legislators’ changes to election laws — both those that tighten election rules in the name of integrity, and those that loosen rules to expand […]

voting booth with instructions

Federal health insurance website lags in voter registration assistance, Democrats charge

By: - July 10, 2023

A group of U.S. Senate Democrats is pressing the Biden administration to make it easier for the millions of Americans who sign up each year for health insurance through a federal website to register to vote. The lawmakers, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wrote in a letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human […]

Letters VOTE with flag images

Red and blue state divide grows even wider in 2023’s top voting and election laws 

By: - June 26, 2023

Next year’s elections are still 16 months away. But for voters, perhaps the most important developments took place during the first half of this year — when states drafted and passed the legislation that will shape how those contests are run. “The rules that will govern the 2024 election are being written today,” said Megan […]

A top GOP lawyer wants to crack down on the college vote. Some states already are.

By: - May 1, 2023

A top Republican election lawyer recently caused a stir when she told GOP donors that the party should work to make it harder for college students to vote in key states. But the comments from Cleta Mitchell, who worked closely with then-President Donald Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election, are perhaps less surprising […]

U.S. elections official takes part in secretive GOP conference, sparking backlash

By: - April 20, 2023

A commissioner of a federal elections agency recently spoke at a secretive conference of conservative voting activists and Republican secretaries of state and congressional staff — a step that election experts call highly improper for an official charged with helping states administer fair and unbiased elections. U.S. Election Assistance Commissioner Donald Palmer, the former chief […]

Federal agencies lag in registering voters despite Biden executive order, advocates say

By: - April 11, 2023

Within weeks of taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order — hailed by voter advocates as potentially transformative — that for the first time committed the U.S. government to registering new voters at federal agencies. But just over two years later, most of the 10 agencies examined in a recent report […]

U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer

Noncitizens allowed to vote in some local elections, spurring backlash from GOP

By: - March 16, 2023

A few cities and towns around the U.S. are letting noncitizens vote in local elections, and more could follow. In response, Republicans see a chance to turn opposition to noncitizen voting into a national rallying cry. On March 14, Washington, D.C., became the latest city to approve noncitizen voting, when a bill allowing the District’s […]

Election deniers who lost secretary of state races now run several state GOP operations

By: - February 24, 2023

Many of the election deniers who ran last year for positions that would have given them control over state elections systems lost their races. But several have found a new path to exert influence: as chair of their state Republican Party.  On Saturday, Kristina Karamo, an activist who rose to prominence for her efforts to […]