Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI) introduced blockbuster legislation to restore voter confidence by implementing baseline standards for election administration as well as strengthen election integrity by making it easy to vote but hard to cheat.
The Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act, led by Committee on House Administration Chairman Steil, implements minimum baseline standards for administering federal elections. The new initiative includes a long list of election integrity initiatives, including many advocated by President Donald Trump and prioritized on the stump by Republican politicians.
With this bill, Republicans who have campaigned on voting integrity will have the opportunity to put their money where their mouth is.
“Americans should be confident their elections are being run with integrity — including commonsense voter ID requirements, clean voter rolls, and citizenship verification,” said Steil. “These reforms will improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat.”
The initiative has already gained support from election integrity advocates including Scott Presler, founder of Early Vote Action.
“I’ve spent the last decade registering voters across the country and empowering Americans to vote. Without fair elections, we aren’t a free nation,” said Presler. “Thank you to Chairman Steil for his leadership on comprehensive election reform. Let’s make elections great again!”
Initiatives in the comprehensive bill include:
- Photo ID: Requires photo identification to cast a ballot.
- Citizenship Verification: Requires states to verify citizenship of individuals when they register to vote.
- Voter List Maintenance: Amends the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act by implementing stronger routine voter list maintenance requirements.
- Election Day Deadline: Requires mail-in ballots (other than those from members of the military stationed overseas) to be received by the close of polls on Election Day.
- Ban on BidenBucks: Prohibits federal agencies from using taxpayer funds to conduct partisan voter registration initiatives.
- Require Paper Ballots: Requires states to use auditable paper ballots for a federal elections.
- Ban Ballot Harvesting: Prohibits operatives from harvesting completed ballots and delivering them to poll centers.
- Ban Ranked Choice Voting: Prohibits ranked choice voting in federal general elections.
- Ban Universal Vote by Mail: Requires voters to affirmatively request a ballot in order to vote by mail.
The package has gained more acclaim from election integrity advocates. Jason Snead, Honest Elections Project Action Director, praised Steil and the committee as well as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) “for their commitment to enhancing election integrity.”
“Americans deserve elections that they can trust, which is why advancing election integrity policies is so important for our politics,” Snead said. “House Republicans have proven that they are not shying away from the fight to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.”
Steil’s bill aims to deliver on the promises of earlier voting integrity law, including the National Votings Rights Act.
“The bill gives clear guidance where the original law in 1993 failed – states have an obligation to have clean voter rolls. 25,000 dead registrants in Michigan or voters supposedly living in Vegas casinos will no longer be acceptable,” said J. Christian Adams, President of the Public Interest Legal Foundation and Commissioner on the Unites States Commission of Civil Rights. “This bill will bring clarity to voter roll maintenance obligations under the NVRA.”
Others joined in praising the legislation for reforming and modernizing the election system.
“For too long, federal laws — especially those governing voter list maintenance — have hampered states that are serious about improving election security and enabled those that are not,” said Justin Riemer, President & CEO, Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE), who also applauded Steil and the committee. “Reform is long overdue.”
With Democrats almost certain to uniformly oppose any efforts to safeguard elections, the path towards inaction is long for the bill. Republicans enjoy a dwindling majority in the House, but any Republicans opposing bringing the bill to the floor are likely to receive significant pushback from a citizenry desperate to ensure their votes count — and that other votes, including from those illegally in the country, do not.
Bradley Jaye is Deputy Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye.
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