State legislatures are back for their 2025 sessions, and promoting the integrity of our elections should be high on the list of priorities.

After all, last year voters passed state ballot measures banning noncitizen voting and requiring voter ID while rejecting others that sought to impose California-style jungle primaries and ranked-choice voting (RCV) — all by wide margins. The message is clear: the public expects our leaders to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.

Over the last four years, states like Georgia, Florida, and Texas have done exactly that. Their reforms helped deliver two high-turnout federal elections. But elections remain far from perfect, and now is the time for states to pass new laws to improve and secure them before the 2026 elections.

Lawmakers should start by banning foreign funding for ballot issues. While foreign nationals are barred from contributing to political candidates, a legal loophole permits them to directly and indirectly finance ballot measure campaigns. Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss billionaire, has donated at least $243 million to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a left-wing group that in turn spent $130 million to influence ballot measure campaigns in 25 states.

Ohio passed legislation banning foreign money in ballot issues last year, and thankfully the voters defeated a foreign-funded ballot issue that would have redrawn Ohio’s political maps to favor Democrats.

© Independent Journal Review