WASHINGTON— Democrats on Capitol Hill are looking to curtail what they see as state-level efforts to restrict voter access.

What You Need To Know

  • H.R.1/S.1, the For the People Act, will be introduced in the Senate Rules Committee next week

  • Democrats' landmark election reform bill narrowly passed the House in March on a party line vote

  • H.R. 4, a more-targeted voting rights bill named after the late Democratic congressman John Lewis, was introduced in the House and Senate in the last Congress and is expected to be reintroduced in the coming months

  • Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska is the only Republican to express support for the H.R. 4

Their landmark election reform bill, the For the People Act, moves to the Senate next week. But after narrowly passing the House on a party line vote, the odds are against it. Still, Democrats are trying to build support.

“It addresses partisan gerrymandering. There’s a whole range of issues that it addresses that even goes after foreign interference with our elections,” said Prof. Paul Schiff Berman, George Washington Law School. “So it's really a sweeping bill to fundamentally protect American democracy.”

One aspect of the bill, the purging of voter rolls, was highlighted at a House hearing on Thursday. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul testified on what he called problems from the last time Wisconsin purged voter lists three years ago. Voters suspected of changing addresses were mailed cards asking for updated info and were removed from the rolls if they didn’t respond. 

While some names were later reinstated, Celina Stewart, Chief Counsel for the League of Women Voters, says such actions are happening more and more across the country.

“I think what we saw like in Pittsburgh, what we saw in North Carolina, and what we saw in Wisconsin and Ohio was that these data sets were not reliable,” said Stewart. “And so in that situation, it's really a question of are the states doing it responsibly? Are the states cleaning the roles in a responsible way and in compliance with the National Voter Registration Act and what that law was intended to do.”

The legislation before Congress is meant to combat efforts led by Republicans in states like Florida and Georgia that Democrats say will restrict voter access. But it has no clear path in the Senate where it still lacks the 10 Republican votes needed to override any filibuster.

Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Janesville says Democrats are overreacting and overreaching.

“They want to provide misinformation as they did in Georgia so that they could justify moving through H.R. 1, a federal takeover of elections,” said Rep. Steil.

H.R. 4, a more-targeted voting rights bill named after the late Democratic congressman John Lewis, was introduced in the House and Senate in the last Congress and is expected to be reintroduced in the coming months.

But Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska is the only Republican to express support for the bill.