The Direction of Democracy: Five Years of Deepening Divides in State Voting Policies

With the midterm elections quickly approaching, access to the ballot increasingly depends on where voters live and who they are. Nearly seven in 10 eligible voters in the South now live in a state with a Low or Negative Democracy Policy Score. Comparatively, in the West, fewer than one in 100 do. MAP’s new report, The Direction of Democracy: Five Years of Deepening Divides in State Voting Policies, traces changes in election and voting policies over the past five years across all 50 states and D.C., and, drawing on MAP’s Democracy Maps, it includes a comprehensive verification of every policy change captured since January 2021. In addition to the regional differences documented in the report, there are also related disparities driven by race: nearly half of Black adults nationwide live in Low or Negative scoring states, compared to 35% of all voters in such states. Looking back to 2021 reveals stark, divergent patterns, as documented in the report: the share of Black adults living under the most restrictive voting environments has nearly doubled, and regional policy differences have become even more pronounced.

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