House Republicans propose voting changes as Trump administration eyes
the midterms
[January 30, 2026]
By LISA MASCARO
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.
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Voting booths are set up at a polling place in Newtown, Pa, April
23, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
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.
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Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to
this report.
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