HAVA Voter Registration Systems Revisited
By Matthew Babbitt, Summer Law Clerk, USGI
The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) reshaped election administration in the United States. Section 303, in particular, required states to implement a “single, uniform, official, centralized, interactive computerized statewide voter registration list.” That mandate drew on lessons from the 2000 election and the findings of the National Commission on Federal Election Reform ( “Carter-Ford Commission”), whose 2001 report recommended that every state should adopt a statewide registration system “networked with and accessible to every election jurisdiction in the state so that any level can initiate registrations and updates with prompt notification to the others.”
Carter-Ford recognized that the law had increasingly placed responsibility for many voter registration functions, especially list maintenance, on state rather than local officials. It also pointed to increased voter mobility, which required more frequent registration changes across county and state lines. Without greater data centralization, keeping voter registration records current and accurate had become untenable, resulting in both access and integrity problems.
Although the legislative history is sparse, HAVA’s text and Carter-Ford point to the same direction: Congress sought to replace fragmented local lists with a shared statewide system housing all registration records. HAVA requires a “single system for storing and managing the official list” that gives officials “immediate” access to it. States nevertheless implemented that mandate in markedly different ways. The three resulting models: top-down, hybrid, and bottom up, differ sharply in how they meet Congress’s envisioned cohesive and shared system.
Top-down systems rely on a single state-created and state-operated voter registration database. This version most clearly meets HAVA’s requirements regarding a “single,” “centralized . . . system.” Local officials access the system directly, recording registrations and changes in real time. Because every jurisdiction reads and writes the same record, an update made by a county or through the state portal typically takes effect statewide immediately rather than waiting on a periodic data transmission to the state.
Hybrid systems split the registration responsibilities and maintenance between localities and the state. One common arrangement makes a state system available to all counties, with the option for a county to run a separate system that meets certain requirements and communicates with the state list. Another has the state act as an intermediary, linking local systems to one another and building the full state list from what each locality provides.
In bottom-up systems, each local board handles registration and list maintenance itself. Local boards must then transmit their voter lists to the state, which uses them to create the “official” HAVA statewide voter list. Each local jurisdiction is responsible for its own list, and the state can only flag discrepancies after combining them.
These differences matter in practice. In bottom-up systems, the state list is only a copy of what counties transmit. The state cannot catch a mistake until it receives each county’s list and compares them, so it can catch problems, but not prevent them from the outset. The delay can result in duplicates turning up only when the various county lists are merged, a policy problem HAVA was designed to prevent.
The same problem appears wherever counties keep their own records. Texas runs a hybrid system, offering every county the state database but allowing some to use outside vendors instead. State officials uncovered as much in a 2024 audit of Val Verde County that found 635 duplicate registrations because other counties, when signing up a voter who had moved, created a new record instead of updating the old one. The Secretary of State tied that pattern to counties that run their own outside vendor systems rather than the state’s.
Although we’re unaware of any detailed studies assessing correlation or causation between the type of HAVA system a state runs and the accuracy of its voter list, the basic architectural flaws of bottom-up systems and the example above shows the potential failure points.
A related, but more fundamental question is whether some state systems comply with Section 303 at all. To date, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has brought only a small number of HAVA enforcement actions. Only four dealt with whether a state’s registration system complied with Section 303, and those cases focused on states that failed to implement the system by HAVA’s deadline. However, the Trump administration is pursuing list maintenance enforcement actions aggressively. Given the role HAVA systems play in satisfying both the NVRA’s and HAVA’s requirements for current and accurate registration lists, Section 303 compliance would be a natural issue for DOJ to examine.
Some states have seen the wisdom of moving from a bottom-up to top-down such as Nevada recently, joining Washington and New Jersey. States moving to replace and refurbish their legacy HAVA registration systems should similarly look at transitioning to a true top-down system. Doing so will avoid the scrutiny of a DOJ that is aggressively pursuing registration list maintenance enforcement, ensure compliance with at least the spirit of HAVA, and likely yield improved voter list accuracy. Leaving states with flexibility was sound, but we knew what Congress meant. The trouble is several states insisted on maintaining vestiges of a registration system that failed to deliver. In light of these issues, a state rebuilding its registration system should build top-down. That choice fits HAVA best: its text, the Carter-Ford report that shaped it, and the Election Assistance Commission’s guidance all point the same way.
Colorado
Longmont City Council voted on August 11 to advance a ballot initiative to allow for ranked choice voting. The initiative will go to a public vote in the November election.
Delaware
Governor Meyer signed House Bill 444, the Delaware John Lewis Voting Rights Act, establishing a state-level voting rights act that prohibits voter discrimination and vote dilution and lets members of protected classes sue over violations.
Florida
The Orange County Canvassing Board acknowledged a printing error that transposed candidate order on 7,442 mail ballots after the vendor printed a draft version. Staff will hand-duplicate the affected ballots onto correct ones so the tabulators count them accurately.
Hawaii
Two state-level primary races are going to mandatory recounts. A state senate race is separated by seven votes and a state house race by one vote. Hawaii requires automatic recounts when the margin is the lesser of 100 votes or 0.5% of votes cast.
Indiana
The Indiana Recount Commission moved up its final hearing in the Republican state Senate primary ahead of the August 21 deadline to certify November candidates, after the commission rejected a state senate candidate’s bid to question voters under oath about crossing over to vote in the primary. Following the hearing, the candidate was certified as the winner of the election by a three-vote margin after several ballots were rejected due to clerical errors.
Kansas
The Wyandotte County Election Office misprinted the return address on nearly 3,000 mail ballots ahead of the August primary, stamping envelopes with a defunct post office box, and told affected voters they could cast a provisional ballot in place of the returned mail ballot.
Missouri
The Clay County Board of Election Commissioners investigated a ballot error that omitted the Western District commissioner race from 538 ballots in one precinct during the August primary, and its review determined that the winner had cleared the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff regardless. A federal grand jury indicted interim Jackson County Executive Philip LeVota on bribery and related charges over a scheme to induce a candidate to abandon the 2026 county-executive race in exchange for county jobs, with the indictment unsealed at his initial court appearance.
New Jersey
The Republican National Committee, the state Republican Party, and Representative Tom Kean Jr. demanded records from New Jersey election officials under the National Voter Registration Act after the state’s disclosure that roughly 6,600 noncitizens had been registered. The request seeks documentation of how officials identify and remove ineligible registrations.
New York
New York legislators are expected to weigh a slate of election measures in the 2027 session, most consequentially a constitutional amendment given first passage in 2026 that would permit mid-decade congressional redistricting when another state redraws and repeal the constitution’s bar on drawing district lines for partisan advantage. Legislators are also expected to consider bills setting minimum qualifications and uniform four-year terms for local board of elections commissioners and narrowing judicial candidates’ cross-party primary access.
North Carolina
The General Assembly sent Governor Stein House Bill 958, which would cut the primary early-voting period from 17 to 10 days, allow challenges to early-voted ballots for up to three days after Election Day, and require weekly county removal of voters the federal SAVE system flags as deceased. The Assembly also passed House Bill 834, which extends ballot-cure deadlines and adjusts voter-ID and venue rules. Stein said he would veto House Bill 958, and legislative leaders said any override would wait until after November.
Oklahoma
Oklahoma voters will decide State Question 846 on the August 25 ballot, a legislature-referred amendment that would write a proof-of-identity requirement for every method of voting into the state constitution and authorize the Legislature to set the specific ID rules. The state already has a statutory ID requirement, approved by 74% of voters in 2010.
Virginia
Governor Spanberger’s office announced that she has restored voting rights to more than 66,000 Virginians with felony convictions since January, reversing her predecessor’s case-by-case review and dropping a requirement that applicants disclose whether they had paid all fines, fees, and restitution. Spanberger also signed a set of election bills, including one returning Virginia to the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) after the state withdrew in 2023, another amending the state Voting Rights Act, and a third requiring registrars to notify voters before canceling a registration.
Wisconsin
Wisconsin’s Democratic primary for governor came down to a margin under one percentage point—close enough for the losing candidate to seek a recount, though above the 0.25-point threshold for a state-funded one—before Francesca Hong conceded to David Crowley. Milwaukee’s report of about 28,000 absentee ballots was delayed until early the next morning after what the city’s election director called a human error in uploading the data.
Arizona
Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans v. Mayes, No. 2:22-cv-01374-GMS (D. Ariz.)
On August 7, the en banc Ninth Circuit vacated the preliminary injunction against Arizona’s 2022 registration law, SB 1260, holding the challenger organizations lack standing to contest its voter-cancellation provision and are unlikely to succeed against its felony provision. The court read the latter to reach only unlawful voting, not registration or outreach.
Arkansas
Hanna v. Jester, No. CV-26-543 (Ark.)
On August 5, supporters of a ballot initiative sued the Secretary of State for rejecting signatures and causing the initiative to fail to reach the required threshold. The Secretary of State said that 19,924 petition pages were rejected for stating the incorrect ballot initiative name. Supporters of the measure assert that the mistake was not material.
Colorado
United States v. Griswold, No. 1:25-cv-03967 (D. Colo.)
On August 4, a federal court dismissed with prejudice the Department of Justice’s suit seeking Colorado’s unredacted statewide voter file.
Florida
Cubanos Pa’Lante v. Florida House of Representatives, No. 1:24-cv-21983 (S.D. Fla.)
On August 6, a three-judge federal court entered judgment for the Florida House of Representatives on claims that state House Districts 115, 118, and 119 were racial gerrymanders, finding race did not predominate in drawing them, and held the challenge to Congressional District 26 in abeyance pending state court litigation over the state’s new congressional map.
Hawaii
Public Interest Legal Foundation v. Lutey, No. 1:26-cv-00421-DKW-RT (D. Haw.)
On August 7, the Public Interest Legal Foundation sued the county clerks of Maui and Kaua‘i under the National Voter Registration Act, alleging they failed to maintain and make available for public inspection the voter list maintenance records the law requires be kept for two years.
Illinois
United States v. Illinois State Board of Elections, No. 3:25-cv-03398-CRL-DJQ (C.D. Ill.)
On July 31, a federal court denied the DOJ’s demand for Illinois’s unredacted statewide voter file.
Maryland
Democracy Forward Foundation v. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, No. 8:26-cv-03035-DKC (D. Md.)
On August 4, Democracy Forward Foundation filed a FOIA suit to compel U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to produce records on the agency’s role in election-related citizenship checks, including the use of the SAVE system for voter-roll maintenance under the March executive order and a DOJ memorandum of understanding.
Howell v. Maryland State Board of Elections, No. C-02-CV-26-001986(Md. Cir. Ct., Anne Arundel Cnty.)
On August 6, Republican legislators and the Oversight Project filed suit in state court to keep a proposed congressional-redistricting constitutional amendment off the November ballot, arguing the General Assembly bypassed statutory ballot-question deadlines. The HB 2100 constitutional amendment would lift the state constitution’s limits on congressional redistricting. The court has set a trial for August 25.
Wheatley v. Maryland State Board of Elections, No. C-09-CV-26-000285 (Md. Cir. Ct., Dorchester Cnty.)
On August 10, five Eastern Shore voters, several of them state legislators, petitioned a state court to strike the HB 2100 constitutional amendment from the November ballot, arguing the measure reached the ballot through a special session that violated Election Law notice requirements and the single-subject rule. On August 12, plaintiffs filed a motion for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction.
Massachusetts
California v. Trump, No. 1:26-cv-11581 (D. Mass.) On August 4, the plaintiff states filed their opposition to the Trump administration’s application to stay the injunction against the March mail-voting executive order.
League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump, No. 1:26-cv-11549 (D. Mass.) On August 11, a federal court expanded its injunction on the March mail-voting executive order to bar the Postal Service from carrying out its directives in every state, extending a June order that had reached only the 23 states and the District of Columbia that sued, and finding the challengers likely to show the order exceeds the President’s authority.
Minnesota
Minnesota Alliance for Retired Americans Educational Fund v. Simon, No. A24-1134 (Minn.)
On August 12, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed a decision upholding the state’s absentee-ballot witness-certification requirement, holding it violates neither the Voting Rights Act’s vouching prohibition for unregistered voters nor the Civil Rights Act’s materiality provision for registered voters.
Missouri
People Not Politicians Missouri v. Hoskins, No. 26AC-CC00440(Cole Cnty. Cir. Ct.)
On August 4, People Not Politicians Missouri sued Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in state court over his certificate of insufficiency for the HB1 referendum, which would let voters decide whether the state’s redrawn congressional map takes effect, arguing that congressional redistricting is not among the constitutional exceptions to the referendum power. The group said it submitted more than 305,000 signatures, and election officials face a September 8 deadline to finalize ballots. The RNC, NRCC, and Missouri GOP have intervened in the lawsuit.
Nebraska
Republican National Committee v. Evnen, No. CI 26-2329 (Neb. Dist. Ct., Lancaster Cnty.)
On August 12, a state court rejected the Republican National Committee’s facial challenge to a Nebraska law that lets U.S. citizens who have never resided in the state register and vote there if a parent is a registered Nebraska voter. The court held that plaintiffs had standing but that the facial challenge failed because the statute has at least one constitutional application.
Pennsylvania
Kopecki v. County of Lackawanna, No. 3:25-cv-02513-JFS (M.D. Pa.)
On August 4, the parties entered a consent decree resolving a suit over Lackawanna County’s mailing of incorrect 2025 primary ballots to 545 Scranton voters, under which the county agreed to adopt a comprehensive written elections manual and quality-control procedures. The Center for Election Confidence, which represented the plaintiff, issued a public statement.
New Hampshire
Coalition for Open Democracy v. Scanlan, No. 1:26-cv-647 (D.N.H.)
On August 11, the Coalition for Open Democracy filed suit in federal court to block a New Hampshire law and directive barring students from using school-issued photo IDs to register or vote, seeking to reinstate the IDs before the September 8 primary and arguing the ban unlawfully targets young voters.
Texas
La Union del Pueblo Entero v. Abbott, No. 5:21-cv-00844 (W.D. Tex.)
On August 12, the Fifth Circuit reversed a district court’s permanent injunction against nine provisions of Texas’s 2021 election law, SB 1, including mail-ballot identification and voter-assistance rules, holding the groups challenging them under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act mostly lacked standing, with one claim failing on the merits.
Wisconsin
Bins v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, No. 2026CV002400 (Wis. Cir. Ct., Dane Cnty.)
On July 29, a state court declined to block the Elections Commission guidance barring absentee voters from voiding a returned ballot and casting a new one, leaving the restriction in place for the August 11 primary after more than 112,000 absentee ballots had been returned.
Disability Rights Wisconsin v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, No. 2024CV001141 (Wis. Cir. Ct., Dane Cnty.)
On August 4, a state court ruled that Wisconsin’s paper-only absentee process denies voters with disabilities an equal opportunity to vote privately and independently, but stopped short of ordering an electronic-ballot option and set the remedy for a later trial, making a change unlikely before November.
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission published guidance on operating without appointed members, having lost the three-member quorum HAVA requires for Commission action under 52 U.S.C. § 20928 effective July 9.
House Administration and Judiciary Committees demanded records from New Jersey’s Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State over the state’s disclosure that a Motor Vehicle Commission error registered roughly 6,600 self-identified noncitizens, setting an August 17 production deadline. The Republican National Committee reported that its poll-worker recruitment was running 42 percent ahead of its 2024 pace, at 16,971 signups, with paid staff in 25 states and about 177 active election lawsuits. The Democratic National Committee, which did not share 2026 figures, pointed to the more than 120,000 voter-protection volunteers it mobilized from 2021 to 2024.
The Republican National Committee reported that its poll-worker recruitment was running 42 percent ahead of its 2024 pace, at 16,971 signups, with paid staff in 25 states and about 177 active election lawsuits. The Democratic National Committee, which did not share 2026 figures, pointed to the more than 120,000 voter-protection volunteers it mobilized from 2021 to 2024.
Michael Thielen, president of the Republican National Lawyers Association, argues that New Jersey’s registration of roughly 6,600 noncitizens, 400 of whom voted, undercuts Governor Sherrill’s claim that no elections were affected given how many recent New Jersey races turned on a handful of votes, and contends Democrats resist voter ID and roll maintenance while overlooking administrative errors that keep eligible voters from voting.
Hans von Spakovsky and Daniel Mares of Advancing American Freedom argue that Senator Lisa Murkowski’s Wall Street Journal case against the SAVE America Act misreads the bill and overlooks safeguards written into its text.
A Bipartisan Policy Center analysis by William Adler, Wren Orey, and Wendy Underhill examines how the wave of mid-decade redistricting burdens election officials, and recommends giving them more lead time and resources to implement new maps.
The organizers of the annual Election Law Conference invited paper abstracts for the third annual conference, to be held February 26-27, 2027, at the USC Gould School of Law. Papers may address any topic in election law or the law of democracy. Abstracts of up to 500 words are due September 4, 2026.
The Grant Institute has potential openings for junior level attorneys and others interested in the study of election administration and voting issues. Interested candidates should please email their resume to info@grantdemocracy.org.