House GOP Propose Voting Changes       01/30 06:06

   House Republicans are proposing sweeping changes to the nation's voting 
laws, a long-shot priority for President Donald Trump that would impose 
stricter requirements, including some before Americans vote in the midterm 
elections in the fall.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Republicans are proposing sweeping changes to the 
nation's voting laws, a long-shot priority for President Donald Trump that 
would impose stricter requirements, including some before Americans vote in the 
midterm elections in the fall.

   The package released Thursday reflects a number of the party's most 
sought-after election changes, including requirements for photo IDs before 
people can vote and proof of citizenship, both to be put in place in 2027. 
Others, including prohibitions on universal vote-by-mail and ranked choice 
voting -- two voting methods that have proved popular in some states -- would 
happen immediately. The Republican president continues to insist that the 2020 
election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden was rigged.

   "Americans should be confident their elections are being run with integrity 
-- including commonsense voter ID requirements, clean voter rolls, and 
citizenship verification," said Rep. Bryan Steil, chairman of the House 
Administration Committee, in a statement.

   "These reforms will improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, 
and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat," said Steil, R-Wis.

   The legislation faces a long road in the narrowly-split Congress, where 
Democrats have rejected similar ideas as disenfranchising Americans' ability to 
vote with onerous registration and ID requirements. The effort comes as the 
Trump administration is turning its attention toward election issues before the 
November election, when control of Congress will be at stake.

   The administration sent FBI agents Wednesday to raid the election 
headquarters of Fulton County, Georgia, which includes most of Atlanta, seeking 
ballots from the 2020 election. That follows Trump's comments earlier this 
month when he suggested that charges related to that election were imminent.

   The top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, Rep. Joe Morelle of 
New York, said Trump and the Republican Party are trying to "rig" the system.

   "This is their latest attempt to block millions of Americans from exercising 
their right to vote," Morelle said in a statement. He said he would "fight the 
bill at every turn."

   Republicans are calling their new legislation the "Make Elections Great 
Again Act" and say their proposal should provide the minimum standard for 
elections for federal offices.

   The 120-plus-page bill includes requirements that people present a photo ID 
before they vote and that states verify the citizenship of individuals when 
they register to vote, starting next year.

   More immediately, this fall it would require states to use "auditable" paper 
ballots in elections, which most already do; prohibit states from mailing 
ballots to all voters through universal vote-by-mail systems; and ban ranked 
choice voting, which is used in Maine and Alaska.

   States risk losing federal election funds at various junctures for 
noncompliance. For example, states would be required to have agreements with 
the attorney general's office to share information about potential voter fraud 
or risk losing federal election funds in 2026.

   And starting this year, it would require states to more frequently update 
their voting rolls, every 30 days.

   Stephen Richer, a Republican who clashed with Trump over the president's 
false election conspiracy theories while he served as the recorder in Maricopa 
County, Arizona, posted on the social media site X that the bill is reminiscent 
of a Democratic effort to reshape national elections in the opposite direction 
that floundered during Biden's term.

   He wrote that the legislation "flattens federalism, and takes away many 
rights from the states."

   Similar Republican proposals have drawn alarm from voting rights group, 
which say such changes could lead to widespread problems for voters.

   For example, prior Republican efforts to require proof of citizenship to 
vote have been criticized by Democrats as disenfranchising married women whose 
last names do not match birth certificates or other government documents.

   The Brennan Center for Justice and other groups estimated in a 2023 report 
that 9% of U.S. citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, do not have 
proof of their citizenship readily available. Almost half of Americans do not 
have a U.S. passport.

   Trump has long signaled a desire to change how elections are run in the 
United States. Last year he issued an executive order that included a 
citizenship requirement, among other election-related changes.

   At the time, House Republicans approved legislation, the "Safeguard American 
Voter Eligibility Act," that would cement Trump's order into law. That bill has 
stalled in the Senate, though lawmakers have recently revived efforts to bring 
it forward for consideration.