GOP Presses Voting Changes    12/26 06:56

   Republicans plan to move quickly in their effort to overhaul the nation's 
voting procedures, seeing an opportunity with control of the White House and 
both chambers of Congress to push through long-sought changes that include 
voter ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements.

   ATLANTA (AP) -- Republicans plan to move quickly in their effort to overhaul 
the nation's voting procedures, seeing an opportunity with control of the White 
House and both chambers of Congress to push through long-sought changes that 
include voter ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements.

   They say the measures are needed to restore public confidence in elections, 
an erosion of trust that Democrats note has been fueled by false claims from 
President-elect Donald Trump and his allies of widespread fraud in the 2020 
election. In the new year, Republicans will be under pressure to address 
Trump's desires to change how elections are run in the U.S., something he 
continues to promote despite his win in November.

   The main legislation that Republicans expect to push will be versions of the 
American Confidence in Elections Act and the Safeguard American Voter 
Eligibility Act, said GOP Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, chair of the Committee 
on House Administration, which handles election-related legislation. The 
proposals are known as the ACE and SAVE acts, respectively.

   "As we look to the new year with unified Republican government, we have a 
real opportunity to move these pieces of legislation not only out of committee, 
but across the House floor and into law," Steil said in an interview. "We need 
to improve Americans' confidence in elections."

   Republicans are likely to face opposition from Democrats and have little 
wiggle room with their narrow majorities in both the House and Senate. Steil 
said he expects there will be "some reforms and tweaks" to the original 
proposals and hopes Democrats will work with Republicans to refine and 
ultimately support them.

   Democrats want to make it easier, not harder, to vote

   New York Rep. Joe Morelle, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said there 
was an opportunity for bipartisan agreement on some issues but said the two 
previous GOP bills go too far.

   "Our view and the Republicans' view is very different on this point," 
Morelle said. "They have spent most of the time in the last two years and 
beyond really restricting the rights of people to get to ballots -- and that's 
at the state level and the federal level. And the SAVE Act and the ACE Act both 
do that -- make it harder for people to vote."

   Morelle said he wants to see both parties support dedicated federal funding 
for election offices. He sees other bipartisan opportunities 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 that are acceptable for voting, making it harder for college students or 
those who lack a permanent address.

   Morelle said he was disappointed by the GOP's claims in this year's 
campaigns about widespread voting by noncitizens, which is extremely rare, and 
noted how those claims all but evaporated once Trump won. Voting by noncitizens 
is already illegal and and can result in felony charges and deportation.

   "You haven't heard a word about this since Election Day," Morelle said. 
"It's an Election Day miracle that suddenly the thing that they had spent an 
inordinate amount of time describing as a rampant problem, epidemic problem, 
didn't exist at all."

   GOP: Current voter registration relies on an ?honor system'

   Before the November election, House Republicans pushed the SAVE Act, which 
passed the House in July but stalled in the Democrat-controlled Senate. It 
requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote and includes potential 
penalties for election officials who fail to confirm eligibility.

   Republicans say the current process relies on an what they call an honor 
system with loopholes that have allowed noncitizens to register and vote in 
past elections. While voting by noncitizens has occurred, research and reviews 
of state cases have shown it to be rare and typically a mistake rather than an 
intentional effort to sway an election.

   Under the current system, those seeking to register are asked to provide 
either 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 is not tight enough because 
in many states people can be added to voter rolls even if they do not provide 
this information and that some noncitizens can receive Social Security numbers 
and driver's licenses. They believe the current requirement that anyone 
completing a voter registration form sign under oath that they are a U.S. 
citizen is not enough.

   They want to force states to reject any voter registration application for 
which proof of citizenship is not provided. Republicans say that could include 
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 battleground state, election officials 
said they have not encountered any hiccups 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 were not able to 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 a juror because they were not a U.S. citizen. Of 
the 20 people identified, six were investigated for illegal voting, though one 
of those cases was closed because the person had since died.

   "What we've done by doing those audits is give voters confidence that we do 
not have noncitizens voting here in Georgia," said Brad Raffensperger, 
Georgia's secretary of state. "And when 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 requirements, credits the state's early adoption of REAL ID and use 
of automatic voter registration for ensuring voter lists are accurate. The 
latter is something he hopes more Republicans will consider, as he argued it 
has allowed Georgia election officials to use the motor vehicle agency'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 priceless 
franchise to vote," Raffensperger said.

   Look to states as laboratories for voting reforms

   If Congress does pass any changes, it would fall to election officials 
across the country to implement them.

   Raffensperger and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, 
said it would be a mistake to move the country to a single day of voting, 
something Trump has said he would like to see happen, because it would 
eliminate early voting and limit access to mail ballots. Both methods are 
extremely popular among voters. In Georgia, 71% of voters in November cast 
their ballots in person before Election Day.

   Both said they hoped lawmakers would look to what is working in their states 
and build off those successes.

   "We've proven time and time again in our states that our elections are 
secure and are accurate," Benson said.