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As we move beyond the long, anxious 2024 election cycle, we’re entering the 2026 and 2028 cycles with a largely unshaped landscape for elections. To help develop an outlook, we’ve decided to turn our first newsletter of the year over to people who are smarter than us: folks who participated in the experts desk Votebeat ran this past election cycle. Their expectations provide a first guess about what election debates will look like over the next several months.
The experts had much to say about what they expect this year, but for many of them, the debate over noncitizen voting safeguards is top of mind. Sylvia Albert, democracy and representation policy counsel at advocacy group Common Cause, thinks it might affect everything “from state laws that require proof of citizenship, to possible funding being tied to such requirements, voter purges that target naturalized citizens, and court cases around this topic” that she said could reshape longstanding federal voting statutes, including the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.
Liz Avore, senior adviser to Voting Rights Lab, which tracks state-level voting legislation, said her organization expects a “wave of legislation” this year related to noncitizen voting, such as “requiring voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship, like a passport or birth certificate, when they register to vote.”
Joshua Douglas, election law professor at the University of Kentucky, also expects such a focus. “This is unfortunate given that we know that noncitizens do not vote to any significant degree,” he said, “just as we know that in-person impersonation fraud does not occur to any measurable degree.”
While David Levine, senior elections integrity fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, is on the lookout for proof-of-citizenship legislation like everyone else, he’s also expecting legislation on “stricter voter ID requirements, and more election police units like the one created in Florida a couple of years ago.”
For his part, Trey Grayson, Kentucky’s former Republican secretary of state and managing director of law firm Frost, Brown, Todd, is hoping to see local election administrators continue to work with legislatures to introduce what he describes as “continuous improvement” bills. These types of bills rarely make headlines but proactively look for ways to make the voting process better. “Utah and Kentucky are two states that have done this quite successfully over the past few years,” he said. “I hope that more states do so in 2025.”
Sam Oliker-Friedland, executive director of the Institute for Responsive Government, a policy think tank, said his organization will be watching for “opportunities to further commonsense policy solutions like early voting,” even in states where that previously seemed unlikely. “This is primarily due to a shift in narratives around these policies indicating what we’ve known for a while: Pro-voter policies impact voters of all backgrounds and political makeup,” he said.
Finally, experts are interested to see what happens with voters’ trust in elections. “I expect we’ll see a big increase in trust from the winning party, and I’m watching to see if that’s a lasting return to trust or if it’s a temporary reprieve,” said Ben Adida, co-founder of Voting Works.
“What will it take to have justifiable confidence in the trustworthiness of our elections every time, no matter who wins?” asked Pamela Smith, CEO and president of Verified Voting. “We are closely monitoring any attempts disguised as election security legislation that will instead disenfranchise voters and dismantle voting rights.”
Did they miss something? Tell us what you are looking out for this year.
Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.