Explore the Data
A team of Bloomberg journalists set out to find out which states are most vulnerable to political election interference. We dug into the laws in all 50 states and scrutinized the thousands of election-related bills proposed nationwide since 2020.
We then judged states on three categories: how easy it is to vote, how secure and accurate elections are and whether elected officials are likely to try to interfere with future elections. For each of these categories, we found simple yes-or-no questions that could be used as benchmarks.
Our research found three main questions determine how vulnerable a state’s elections are to political interference:
- How easy is it to vote?
- How secure and reliable is the ballot count?
- Will officials respect the results?
Then, we identified 19 important benchmarks that help answer these key questions. The bigger the slice of pie, the worse a state performed on our benchmarks.
How easy is it to vote?
More difficult to register and vote
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How secure and reliable is the ballot count?
More threats to security and accuracy
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Will officials respect the results?
More efforts to undermine 2020 election
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Tap a state to read more
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Benchmarks by state
Voting policies and practices vary widely by state
With assistance by:
Rachael Dottle, Marie Patino, Jenny Zhang, Gregory Korte, Romy Varghese, Vincent Del Giudice, Nathan Crooks, Margaret Newkirk, Shruti Date Singh, David Welch, Elise Young, Dina Bass, Brendan Walsh, Carey Goldberg and Maria Wood
Editors:
Wendy Benjaminson, Wes Kosova, Alex Tribou and Yue Qiu
Photo editors:
Eugene Reznik, Marisa Gertz and Maria Wood
Photo credits:
Getty Images, Bloomberg and AP Photo