Leading up to the midterm election, we’ve worked with our network of business, academic and civic leaders to create a state-level Democracy Report Card. Specifically, our research team assigned a letter grade to each state based on its democratic performance across three critical categories: voting, electoral systems, and campaign finance.
With our research, your business can make more informed decisions on political influence and philanthropy.
Top 3 Lessons
Every state, regardless of the dominant party, can make improvements to ensure elections are modernized, secure, accessible, and transparent.
Many aspects of a state’s democratic performance are tied together; addressing one issue can lead to improvements in other aspects. For example – increasing mail-in voting access can decrease voting wait times and increase voter turnout, generating an improvement in voting through an improvement in electoral systems.
Challenges in democratic performance aren’t endemic to either red or blue states; most states rank poorly, with the majority receiving a “C” grade.
Here is a list of our key states and a brief analysis of their score:
Michigan (86%) Michigan has improved its elections measurably via citizen-led ballot initiatives over the last several years. Its independent redistricting commission has led to fair legislative and congressional districts, and its automatic voter registration system has led to high voter registration. Michigan does less well in the campaign finance section, with relatively high campaign contribution limits and higher than average dark money spending.
Massachusetts (82%) Massachusetts has enacted strong laws supporting access to voting; however, its political culture at the state legislative level of few contested races, racial disparity in voter participation, and loopholes in campaign finance laws offer opportunities for improvements.
California (82%) California’s laws around voting access are strong, with significant opportunities for voting by mail. The state also has an independent redistricting commission to create fair maps. Unfortunately, there is a history of relatively low voter registration and turnout, along with higher than average racial disparities in turnout.
Georgia (78%) Georgia has been moving in the wrong direction around voting access, with recent laws enacted that make voting more difficult and give more power to political forces around election certification. It also has a history of long waits at the polls. On the positive side, its automatic voter registration system has led to relatively high registration rates while racial disparities around voter participation are relatively low.
New York (77%): Since 2019, lawmakers in New York State have made important reforms including automatic voter registration, enabling those on probation and parole to vote, online voter registration, and early voting. These reforms have significantly improved New York’s rating. What hinders the rating is the state constitutional prohibition on “no excuse” absentee voting, the very high contribution limits for statewide offices, long waiting times at the polls, and general low participation rates.
Pennsylvania (75%) Pennsylvania has significant opportunities for improvement. Its lack of any limits for campaign contributions to statewide candidates is out of sync with most other states; its relatively low voter registration rate and lack of an automatic voter registration system are a concern; and on the positive side, Pennsylvania courts have struck down partisan gerrymandering schemes which have led to much fairer legislative and congressional districts.
Wisconsin (75%) Wisconsin has terribly gerrymandered state legislative and congressional districts and no automatic voter registration, along with significant racial disparities in turnout (a very high percentage of voters of color live in Milwaukee, where participation is historically low). The state also has high campaign contribution limits and significant dark money spends. On the positive side, of those who are registered, turnout is overall very high compared with other states.
Texas (70%): The Lone Star State has a grim history of voter turnout, especially in primaries and midterms. The state legislature has restricted voting by mail; requires voter IDs; limits “drive-thru voting;” outlaws 24-hour polling locations; has no online voter registration process; and does not require accessible polling places near colleges.
For the full rankings, metrics and sources, and actions you can take with this data, visit the 2022 Democracy Report Card. Additionally, in the weeks following the next election, we will do follow-up analysis to see how this report card did or did not predict voting and campaign finance in the midterms.