By LISA MASCARO, AP Congressional Correspondent<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 House Republicans are proposing sweeping changes to the nation\u2019s voting laws, a long-shot priority for\u00a0President Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0that would impose stricter requirements, including some before Americans vote in the midterm elections in the fall.<\/p>\n The package released Thursday reflects a number of the party\u2019s most\u00a0sought-after election changes<\/a>, 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\u00a0ranked choice voting<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 two voting methods that have proved popular in some states \u2014 would happen immediately. The Republican president continues to insist that the\u00a02020 election<\/a>\u00a0he lost to Democrat Joe Biden was rigged.<\/p>\n \u201cAmericans should be confident their elections are being run with integrity \u2014 including commonsense voter ID requirements, clean voter rolls, and citizenship verification,\u201d said Rep. Bryan Steil, chairman of the House Administration Committee, in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cThese reforms will improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat,\u201d said Steil, R-Wis.<\/p>\n The legislation faces a long road in the narrowly-split Congress, where Democrats have rejected\u00a0similar ideas<\/a>\u00a0as disenfranchising Americans\u2019 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.<\/p>\n The administration sent FBI agents Wednesday to\u00a0raid the election headquarters<\/a>\u00a0of Fulton County, Georgia, which includes most of Atlanta, seeking ballots from the 2020 election. That follows Trump\u2019s comments earlier this month when he suggested that charges related to that election were imminent.<\/p>\n Republicans are calling their new legislation the \u201cMake Elections Great Again Act\u201d and say their proposal should provide the minimum standard for elections for federal offices.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n More immediately, this fall it would require states to use \u201cauditable\u201d 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.<\/p>\n States risk losing federal election funds at various junctures for noncompliance. For example, states would be required to have agreements with the attorney general\u2019s office to share information about potential voter fraud or risk losing federal election funds in 2026.<\/p>\n And starting this year, it would require states to more frequently update their voting rolls, every 30 days.<\/p>\n Similar proposals have drawn alarm from voting rights group, which say such changes could lead to widespread problems for voters.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Trump has long signaled a desire to change how elections are run in the United States. Last year he issued\u00a0an executive order<\/a>\u00a0that included a citizenship requirement, among\u00a0other election-related changes<\/a>.<\/p>\n