House Republicans are proposing stricter voting rules as the Trump administration eyes the midterm elections

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are proposing sweeping changes to the nation’s voting laws, a long-shot priority of President Donald Trump that would impose tougher requirements, including some before Americans vote in the fall’s midterm elections.

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The package released Thursday reflects a number of the party’s most popular election changes, including requirements for photo IDs before people can vote and proof of citizenship, both of which will be implemented in 2027. Other changes, including bans on universal voting by mail and ranked-choice voting — two voting methods that have proven popular in some states — will be implemented immediately. The Republican president continues to insist that the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, was rigged.

“Americans should be confident that their elections are administered fairly — including commonsense requirements for voter ID, clean voter rolls, and citizenship verification,” Rep. Brian Steele, chairman of the House Administration Committee, said in a statement.

“These reforms will improve voter confidence, strengthen election integrity, and make it easier to vote, but harder to cheat,” said Steele, the Wisconsin Republican.

The legislation faces a long road in a narrowly divided Congress, where Democrats have rejected similar ideas as denying Americans the right to vote under burdensome registration and ID requirements. These efforts come as the Trump administration turns its attention to election issues ahead of the November elections, when control of Congress is at stake.

The administration sent FBI agents on Wednesday to raid an election headquarters in Fulton County, Georgia, which includes most of Atlanta, to obtain ballots for the 2020 election. This follows Trump’s comments earlier this month when he suggested charges related to that election were imminent.

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Republicans are calling their new legislation the “Make Elections Great Again Act” and say their proposal should provide minimum standards for elections for federal office.

The 120-page bill includes requirements that people provide photo ID before voting and that states verify people’s citizenship when registering to vote, starting next year.

More urgently, this fall, it will require states to use “auditable” ballots in elections, which most states already do; Prevent states from mailing ballots to all voters through universal mail-in voting systems; and ban ranked-choice voting, which is used in Maine and Alaska.

States risk losing federal election funds at various points due to noncompliance. For example, states would be required to enter into agreements with the attorney general’s office to share information about potential voter fraud or risk losing federal election funds in 2026.

Starting this year, states will be required to update their voting rolls more frequently, every 30 days.

Similar proposals have alarmed voting rights groups, which say such changes could lead to widespread problems for voters.

For example, Democrats have criticized previous Republican efforts to require proof of citizenship to vote 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 voting-age U.S. citizens, or 21.3 million people, do not have readily available proof of their citizenship. Nearly half of Americans do not have a US passport.

Trump has long indicated his desire to change the way elections are administered 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 American Voter Eligibility Protection Act, that would turn Trump’s order into law. That bill has stalled in the Senate, though lawmakers recently revived efforts to advance it for consideration.

Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.