Abstract
This paper explores the relationship between election results in 2020 and the passage of election laws that either expanded or restricted (sometimes both) access to the polls in subsequent state legislative sessions. The primary dependent variable is the net valence of laws passed in the wake of the 2020 election, restrictive or expansive. The primary independent variables are the partisan composition of state government, the closeness of the 2020 election, and the interaction of the two.
Although there has been considerable attention to efforts to restrict access to the polls, many states have actually passed laws expanding access. This paper will advance the field by coding the net results of state legislative activity in 2021 and 2022, characterizing the landscape of proposed vs. enacted legislation, and showing the relationship between the two.
One additional topic the paper will address is the degree to which the diffusion of the “big lie” has led to less competitive states to jump on the restrictive bandwagon. That is, we hypothesize that the 2021 legislative sessions were primarily motivated by the immediate reaction to the outcome of the 2020 election, thus leading to a sharp divide in the types of state that passed restrictive or expansive legislation. By 2022, partisan attitudes about election administration were more diffuse, leading to a reduction in the relationship between the valence of legislative actions and the partisan competitiveness and control of the state.