ATLANTA (AP) — Republicans plan to move quickly in their effort to overhaul the nation’s voting procedures, seeing control of the White House and both chambers of Congress as an opportunity to make long-sought changes , including voter identification and proof of identity. citizenship requirements.
They say the measures are necessary to restore public confidence in the elections, an erosion of trust that Democrats say is fueled by false claims by newly elected President Donald Trump and his allies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election. In the new year, Republicans will be under pressure to meet Trump’s desire to change the way elections are conducted in the US, something he continues to promote despite his victory in November.
The key legislation Republicans expect to pass will be versions of the American Confidence in Elections Act and the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, said GOP Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, chairman of the Committee on House Administration, which handles election-related legislation. The proposals are known as the ACE and SAVE Acts, respectively.
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“As we look into the new year with a unified Republican government, we have a real opportunity to not only move these pieces of legislation out of committee, but across the House and into law,” Steil said in an interview . “We need to increase Americans’ confidence in the elections.”
Republicans will likely face opposition from Democrats and have little room to maneuver with their narrow majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Steil said he expects there will be “some reforms and adjustments” to the original proposals and hopes Democrats will work with Republicans to refine and ultimately support them.
Democrats want to make voting easier, not harder
New York Rep. Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the committee, said there was a possibility for bipartisan agreement on some issues but said the two previous Republican bills go too far.
“Our views and those of Republicans are very different on this issue,” Morelle said. “They’ve spent most of the last two years and beyond really restricting people’s rights to vote — and that’s at the state level and federal level. And the SAVE Act and the ACE Act both do that: they make it harder for people to vote.”
Morelle said he wants both parties to support dedicated federal funding for election offices. He sees other bipartisan options around limiting foreign money in U.S. elections and possibly imposing a voter ID requirement if certain safeguards are in place to protect voters.
Democrats say some state laws are too restrictive in limiting the types of IDs acceptable for voting, making it more difficult for students or people without a permanent address.
Morelle said he was disappointed by the Republican Party’s claims in this year’s campaigns about widespread noncitizen voting, which is extremely rare, and noted how those claims all but disappeared when Trump won. Voting by non-citizens is already illegal and can lead to charges and deportation.
“You haven’t heard a word about this since Election Day,” Morelle said. “It’s a miracle on Election Day that the thing they had spent an inordinate amount of time describing as a rampant problem, an epidemic problem, suddenly didn’t exist at all.”
GOP: Current voter registration relies on an ‘honor system’
Before the November elections, Republicans in the House of Representatives pushed for the SAVE Act, which passed the House of Representatives in July but stalled in the Democratic-controlled Senate. It requires proof of citizenship upon registration to vote and includes possible penalties for election officials who do not certify their eligibility.
Republicans say the current process relies on what they call an honor system, with loopholes that allowed noncitizens to register and vote in previous elections. Although non-resident voting has occurred, research and state case reviews have shown this to be rare and a mistake rather than a deliberate attempt to influence elections.
Under the current system, those wishing to register are asked to provide a state driver’s license number or the last four digits of a social security number. A few states require a full Social Security number.
Republicans say the voter registration process isn’t tight enough because many states allow people to be added to voter rolls even if they don’t provide that information, and some noncitizens can get Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses. They believe that the current requirement that anyone who fills out a voter registration form sign under oath that he or she is a U.S. citizen is not sufficient.
They want to force states to reject any voter registration application that does not provide proof of citizenship. Republicans say this could be a REAL ID-compliant driver’s license, a passport or a birth certificate.
One state flags noncitizens with regular audits
In Georgia, a perennial presidential state, election officials said they have encountered no problems verifying the citizenship status of its nearly 7.3 million registered voters. They conducted an audit in 2022 that identified 1,634 people who had attempted to register but could not be verified as U.S. citizens by a federal database.
A second audit this year used local court records to identify people who said they could not serve as jurors because they were not U.S. citizens. Of the 20 people identified, six were investigated for illegal voting, although one of those cases was closed because the person had since died.
“What we’ve done with these audits is give voters confidence that there are no noncitizens voting here in Georgia,” said Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state. “And if society is highly polarized, you have to look at building trust. Trust is the gold standard.”
Raffensperger, a Republican who supports both voter ID and proof of citizenship, credits the state’s early adoption of REAL ID and its use of automatic voter registration to ensure voter rolls are accurate. The latter is something he hopes more Republicans will consider, as he says it has allowed Georgia election officials to use the motor vehicle bureau’s process to verify citizenship and track people moving in and around the state .
“You have to get it right because you’re talking about people’s invaluable voting rights,” Raffensperger said.
Think of states as laboratories for voting reform
If Congress makes changes, it will be up to election officials across the country to implement them.
Raffensperger and Democrat Jocelyn Benson, Michigan Secretary of State, said it would be a mistake to move the country to a single voting day, something Trump said he would like to see happen because it would eliminate early voting and restrict access would be limited to elections. ballots by mail. Both methods are extremely popular among voters. In Georgia, 71% of November voters cast their ballots in person before Election Day.
Both said they hoped lawmakers would look at what’s working in their states and build on those successes.
“We have proven time and again in our states that our elections are secure and accurate,” Benson said.
