Why Kentucky Just Became the Only Red State to Expand Voting Rights

Republican lawmakers and the state’s Democratic governor backed a new law that proved the exception to the trend of G.O.P.-led legislatures moving to restrict ballot access.

Jennifer Decker has solid conservative credentials. A first-term Republican state lawmaker in Kentucky who used to work for Senator Rand Paul, she represents a county that voted for Donald J. Trump last year by nearly 30 percentage points. Yet at a time when many of her Republican counterparts around the country are racing to pass stringent new restrictions on voting — fueled in part by Mr. Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election — Ms. Decker’s first major bill swerved. It aimed to make it easier for people to vote in the state.