{"id":344101,"date":"2026-03-13T11:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T11:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/344101\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T11:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T11:20:10","slug":"trump-presses-republicans-to-radically-alter-voting-rules-before-midterm-elections-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/344101\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump presses Republicans to radically alter voting rules before midterm elections \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Republican<\/a> Senate majority leader John Thune announced on Thursday that he would be bringing the Save America Act to the chamber floor and promised \u201ca full and robust debate\u201d it sounded close to business as usual.<\/p>\n

The understatement glossed over the intensifying pressure Thune has endured from president Donald Trump<\/a>, and the Republican Maga base, to push a series of proposed voting changes through the Senate that would radically alter the voting patterns and procedures across the United States<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The GOP consensus opinion is that the Save America Act must pass. Illinois Democratic representative Delia Ramirez, during a debate on the Bill in the House, described the measure as \u201cyet another Republican attempt to suppress and intimidate the votes of anyone who threatens their white supremacist agenda. Don\u2019t take my word for it. Just look for the threats to surround the polls with gun-wielding masked men and it will become clear to you that Trump and Republicans want to control who votes so they can remain in power. It\u2019s just another page from the authoritarian playbook.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody can accuse Trump of failing to multitask. In addition to prosecuting his war\/excursion with Iran and boogeying with Jake Paul, he has spent the week steadily turning the heat up under Thune to work through the Senate an act that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described as \u201cone of the most critical pieces of legislation in our nation\u2019s history\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Save America Bill is overwhelmingly popular with all Americans because each provision is rooted in common sense,\u201d she said at Tuesday\u2019s briefing, citing the 2005 bipartisan report chaired by former president Jimmy Carter and James Baker that concluded that \u201cabsentee ballots remained the largest source of voter fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s what the American people elected Republicans to do and they must deliver on it as soon as possible. The president is calling on Congress to get the job done and send this historic piece of legislation to his desk \u2013 immediately \u2013 for signature.\u201d <\/p>\n

The message was delivered to the press corps but intended for Thune and his senatorial colleagues on the Hill.<\/p>\n

\"SenateSenate majority leader John Thune. He is being pressured by conservatives to move the Save America Act forward, a priority for president Donald Trump going into the midterm elections. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) Act has long been on the Trump agenda but the urgency to pass it into law is growing as the GOP eyes the November midterms, and the current polls, with growing trepidation. <\/p>\n

In brief, it has five requirements: that voters show a valid form of identification; that they show a proof of citizenship; and that mail-in ballots will be limited to members of the military, to voters with disability and to people who can demonstrate that they were travelling on election days. <\/p>\n

The fourth and fifth requirements play strongly with the Maga base: banning transgender women from competing in women\u2019s sport, and gender reassignment surgery for children \u2013 or, as Leavitt phrased it, the Act \u201cpermanently bans men from competing in women\u2019s sports\u201d and \u201cbans transgender mutilation surgery for children\u201d. <\/p>\n

Until this week, Thune had resisted calls to bring the legislation to the floor on the grounds that the Republicans simply do not have the 60 votes required \u2013 it would take seven Democrats to cross the aisle. The Bill just about squeezed through the House when Texan representative Henry Cueller became the lone Democrat to vote for it. <\/p>\n

The Republicans have also been exploring ways to force the issue to a traditional \u201ctalking\u201d filibuster, through which the Senate majority could simply pass the legislation by a 51-person majority (with vice-president JD Vance providing the decisive vote) once the Democrats had exhausted themselves by speaking against the Bill; whether that took days or weeks would not matter.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Nobody does it better. Donald Trump goes back on the road for US midterm electionsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

However, Thune said earlier this week that introducing a talking filibuster is \u201cway more complicated and risky than people are assuming at the moment\u201d, incurring further wrath from the right. <\/p>\n

The White House has cited a host of polls demonstrating that the majority of Americans approve of voter identity, arguing that the only group against it are elected Democratic politicians. Their opponents cite numerous issues, not least their distrust of the motivations of a president who has consistently denied the results of the 2020 presidential election, and who has linked undocumented immigrants as a key component of manifest election fraud. <\/p>\n

The proposed changes are also, they argue, fraught with other difficulties. Driving licences do not suffice as a form of photo identification. Some 146 million Americans do not own passports. And 69 million married American women now have surnames that do not match the maiden names on their birth certificates. Millions would encounter difficulties in producing adequate paper work.<\/p>\n

\"USUS president Donald Trump in the White House on Thursday. ‘Nobody can accuse him of failing to multitask.’ Photograph: Heather Diehl\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

James Sample, a constitutional law specialist and professor at Holfsta University, presented the Save America Act as an effort to solve a problem that does not exist as he described instances of non-citizen voting as \u201cvanishingly rare\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is statistically almost zero,\u201d he argued on MS Now. \u201cAnd state after state, audit after audit, including the Trump administration\u2019s own data, bear that out. Which is to say, the sleight of hand here is to take the two parts referenced. Voter ID is the part they market. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018He intends to subvert the elections\u2019: Pressure grows on Donald TrumpOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThe proof of citizenship is the part that would have impact, an absolutely draconian impact. Twenty one million individuals lack ready access to the documents that would be necessary,\u201d he added, pointing out that because electors across the table would have to verify the authenticity of a sudden deluge of documents, it would cause absolute chaos. <\/p>\n

He contended that the \u201cchaos is an end in itself because that end, in turn, becomes a mean for the executive to assert control if the election outcome is not to their liking.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is designed to overwhelm election officials and disenfranchise,\u201d he continued, \u201cand create the kind of \u2018well-there-were-all-sorts-of-problems\u2019 that becomes a predicate for aggressive unilateral imperial action.\u201d<\/p>\n

The counterview has been advanced from voices including Elon Musk \u2013 \u201cIt must be done or democracy is dead,\u201d he posted on X recently to John Cornyn, the veteran Texas senator vying with electoral opponent Ken Paxton for Trump\u2019s decisive endorsement. <\/p>\n

\"RepublicanRepublican senator from Texas John Cornyn. Photograph: EPA <\/p>\n

In a New York Post opinion piece on Tuesday, Cornyn explained to readers \u2013 and specifically, to one reader \u2013 why he felt that scrapping the filibuster is a price worth paying in order to pass the voting reform. <\/p>\n

\u201cDemocrats started this fight. Now Republicans should finish it. When 48 Democrats nearly killed the filibuster, it was to pass radical legislation designed to increase election fraud. They tried to ban voter ID requirements, to decriminalise ballot harvesting, and even to send taxpayer dollars into Democrats\u2019 own campaign funds. The Save America Act, which I\u2019ve co-sponsored, would do the opposite. It would make it easy to vote but harder to cheat, by requiring proof of citizenship and voter ID.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Donald Trump is mad, bad and dangerous. Only the midterms can save the US nowOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The volume of comments to Thune\u2019s post confirming that he will bring the Save America Act to the floor were stark in their demands that he get it done, by hook or crook.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s gotta be a leader. If he\u2019s a leader, he\u2019s got to get \u2018em,\u201d Trump said on Wednesday. \u201cIt\u2019s the most popular Bill I have ever seen put before Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n

But how? Thune lacks both the votes for a majority and even the votes to invoke \u201ccloture\u201d, the procedural rule that would permit a bypass to the filibuster tradition. For all the expected noise in the senate chamber next week, the leader is in a bind. <\/p>\n

His president may be hosting the greening of the White House on Tuesday, but he will be watching closely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Republican Senate majority leader John Thune announced on Thursday that he would be bringing the Save America…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[969,42,47847,43,16621,40,38,41,39,90,73076],"class_list":["post-344101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-house-of-representatives","tag-news","tag-republican-party","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us","tag-us-house-of-representatives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}