Two Southern states just earned near-perfect marks for protecting American elections, while Hawaii landed dead last with a score so low it raises serious questions about who’s actually casting ballots in the Aloha State.
Tennessee and Arkansas tied for first place with 91 points out of 100 in The Heritage Foundation’s 2026 Election Integrity Scorecard, released Tuesday. The rankings reveal a stark divide between states serious about election security and those leaving the door wide open to potential fraud.
Alabama claimed third place with 89 points. Louisiana followed at 85. Florida and Georgia tied for fifth with 83 points each.
At the bottom of the barrel sits Hawaii with a dismal 22 points. California fared only slightly better, ranking 50th out of 51 with 26 points. Vermont and Oregon tied for 48th place with 31 points apiece.
The scorecard, which ranks all 50 states and the District of Columbia, found that citizenship verification laws and protections against foreign funding of elections or ballot initiatives were the key factors separating the leaders from the laggards this year.
“The Heritage Foundation is committed to ensuring that American elections remain secure, accurate, and transparent,” said Don Palmer, senior legal fellow for election integrity at The Heritage Foundation.
Palmer, who previously served as chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, knows what it takes to run clean elections. And according to his organization’s analysis, most blue states aren’t doing it.
The scorecard has been tracking election integrity since 2021, measuring states across 15 categories considered essential for free and fair elections. Those categories include voter ID requirements, accuracy of voter registration lists, ballot harvesting restrictions, restrictions on same-day voter registration, and election audits.
The Heritage Foundation periodically updates the scorecard’s criteria. The think tank says this encourages states to continually improve their processes rather than rest on past achievements.
Beyond reviewing the laws on the books, the scorecard also examines how election officials actually administer elections in practice. Good laws mean nothing if they aren’t enforced.
That enforcement question will become even more central in future rankings. The Heritage Foundation plans to convene meetings with election integrity experts to examine how well states are actually enforcing their election laws. Those findings will be incorporated into the 2027 scorecard.
“States can anticipate that our priorities for 2027 will include adopting proof of citizenship for voting, ensuring election laws are enforced and crimes prosecuted, establishing state election fraud divisions, and conducting compliance audits,” Palmer said.
The mention of citizenship verification carries particular weight for Americans concerned about the integrity of their elections. Common sense says only citizens should vote in American elections. Yet some states have resisted basic verification measures that would confirm voters are who they claim to be.
The contrast between top performers and bottom dwellers tells a clear story. States that take election security seriously, states that verify citizenship, that maintain clean voter rolls, that restrict ballot harvesting, those states cluster at the top of the rankings. States that resist such safeguards cluster at the bottom.
For voters heading to the polls, the scorecard offers a straightforward way to evaluate whether their state government is protecting the franchise or treating it as an afterthought. Tennessee and Arkansas are setting the standard. Hawaii and California have a long way to go.
