Free exercise is safeguarded when a religious person has the ability to participate in an election even when going to a polling place on election day would conflict with their beliefs (say, due to observance of a religious holiday.) Checkmarks below indicate the states that permit some alternative means of voting in these situations, through either statutory or constitutional safeguarding. A state that facilitates all-mail elections, does not require an excuse for absentee voting, or that requires a reason for absentee voting but accepts religious reasons upholds free exercise of religion in this domain.
Note on citations:
Due to changes in online law databases and states’ websites, we cannot ensure that every link to a state law will be functional in perpetuity. If a link to a statute is no longer functional, please use a search engine to locate the state’s code and use the citation number to manually navigate to the relevant law. Where multiple laws are cited, the link is for the first law listed. For more information on citations, download the full data set which includes additional research notes.