GOP rolls out 'troubling' new attack on voting ahead of midterms: report

With Democrats projected to win back control of at least one chamber of Congress in this fall's midterm elections, Republicans are now banking their hopes on legislation that could make it much harder for millions of Americans to cast a ballot.

The New Republic (TNR) reported Thursday that Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), who chairs the House Administration Committee, is behind the new Make Elections Great Again Act. TNR described the legislation as a laundry list of far-right policy priorities "that would actually impose severe restrictions on voting across the country."

Steil's bill would mandate that all voters across the country present a photo ID to be able to vote, require all mail-in ballots arrive for counting no later than Election Day, make voters manually opt in to cast votes by mail and eliminate ranked-choice voting for federal elections, among other restrictions.

"Americans should be confident their elections are being run with integrity – including commonsense voter ID requirements, clean voter rolls, and citizenship verification," Steil stated. "These reforms will improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat."

However, TNR noted that Steil omitted "one of the bill’s most troubling features," in that states would be required to create a single digital database of all registered voters to serve as "the official voter registration list for the conduct of all elections for Federal office in the State."

The Make Elections Great Again Act also requires voters to provide documented proof of citizenship for all federal elections. Voters would also be subjected to periodic eligibility reviews "on an ongoing basis, but in no case less frequently than once every 30 days." The Brennan Center for Justice reported in 2024 that more than 21.3 million people – roughly nine percent of all Americans of voting age — do not have citizenship documents readily available. Roughly 3.8 million don't have those documents at all due to them being lost, destroyed or stolen.

Steil's legislation would also empower Attorney General Pam Bondi to sue individual states if they don't comply with the new federal restrictions on voting, and would also allow private citizens to sue state election officials if they add a new voter to the rolls without verifying their citizenship. While the bill may pass the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, it would need the support of seven Democrats in the U.S. Senate to make it to President Donald Trump's desk.

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