Democrats in battleground election states have fought Republican efforts that claim to make elections more secure for the past two years.
Now Democrats are ready to go on the offensive in 2023, putting forward a long list of proposed voting measures that include registering teenagers to vote before they turn 18, creating automatic voter registration systems and criminalizing election misinformation.
After a better-than-expected performance in the midterm elections, Democrats who won reelection or will soon take office for the first time have taken their victories as an indication to advance their voting proposals.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told The New York Times that he's given his fellow Democrats a directive on voting issues now that his party controls both chambers of the state legislature.
"I've asked them to think big," Walz said.
The GOP will maintain control next year over state governments in Texas, Ohio, Florida and Georgia, and Democrat governors in Arizona and Wisconsin will find themselves working with Republican-controlled legislatures that are largely against Democrat voting proposals.
The Democrat governor-elect of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, will likely be faced with one Republican-majority chamber and one chamber where Democrats hold a slender majority.
The Supreme Court is currently considering a case that could grant state legislatures much more power over election laws, which carries huge implications for the power of state lawmakers to draw congressional maps and make rules for federal elections.
The case comes as a number of Democrats are pushing for the party to become more aggressive in advancing voting legislation — especially because the Senate failed to earlier this year.
According to NBC News, Texas Republicans are gearing up to move quickly on a number of new changes to the state's voting laws, including creating an election police force similar to the one Florida set up before the November midterm elections to prevent fraud.
Most of the proposals fall into one of three categories: bills that would impose harsher penalties for violations, expand the authority of the state attorney general to prosecute election and voting crimes, and create a new law enforcement unit whose sole function would be to enforce and prosecute election and voting crimes.
While the Lone Star State proposals have alarmed state Democrats, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, who wrote the Texas bill, said his bill was designed as a response to a number of problems with voting in Harris County — the third-largest county in the U.S. — which includes Houston.
"It's designed to stop election operators from not following the law," he said. "The author's intent is to stop what's happening in Harris County."
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