For years, President Donald Trump has falsely claimed he won the 2020 election.
Last week, he said it was time to do something about it.
“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over — we should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places.’ The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” he told his former Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Dan Bongino, during a podcast interview last week.
With election security now front and center, House Republicans Tuesday held a hearing to suggest sweeping changes in how Americans vote. The full House is expected to vote on the SAVE America Act this week for the third time in two years.
The bill would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, such as a Real ID, a passport, a military ID, a birth certificate or naturalization documents.
The Trump administration has endorsed the SAVE America Act, with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt calling it “common-sense policies.”
A Pew Research poll last year found that 83% agree that all voters should be required to show government-issued identification to cast a ballot.
But Democrats said the SAVE America Act would disenfranchise millions by requiring voters to produce documents they don’t readily have.
Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., said her late mother-in-law is a perfect example of this.
“She lived to 89 years old — she never had a passport,” said Torres. “She never traveled outside of the country. Why should she have had to present her documents a second time when our state already verified that she was a citizen?”
Torres also pointed out that a lot of voter registration now happens at the DMV.
“Our states are doing their job, and the evidence simply is not there,” she said of the accusations of fraud.
California has faced heightened scrutiny of its elections because some races can take weeks to decide.
“In some of the states, like in California, for example. I mean, they hold the elections open for weeks after Election Day. That’s just one thing that bothers so many people,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters last week.
But Torres pushed back on the notion that California’s elections are anything but secure and said the only reason results take so long in the Golden State is because millions cast their ballots by mail and they make sure every qualifying ballot is counted. In the 2024 election, 13,034,378 Californians voted in this way.
“We respect the voters’ choice, which means if they drop it by 8 p.m. at the mailbox, we’re going to wait until the United States Post Service delivers that ballot, and we’re going to count it.”
Republicans are also pushing the MEGA Act to change election procedures, which would not only require voter identification to be presented at the time of casting a ballot, but would also require mail-in ballots to be received by the close of polls on election day.
It’s unclear when that legislation could get a vote, or if it has enough support to be viable.