Republicans, Braced for Losses, Push More Voting Restrictions in Congress
The strict voter identification measure that Republicans pushed through the House last week was just their opening salvo in a monthslong effort to establish new voting restrictions they regard as crucial to keeping control of Congress ahead of midterm elections the G.O.P. is in danger of losing.
The relentless focus on the bills, which face an uphill path to becoming law, serves two purposes that Republicans view as existential. It is aimed at intensifying the pressure within their own ranks to do whatever necessary to muscle the legislation through Congress and to President Trump’s desk, allowing them to make changes they believe could reshape the electorate in their favor.
Barring that, it allows Republicans to amplify the president’s false claims of mass voter fraud, sowing distrust ahead of the November elections that helps build a case, however groundless, that any Democratic victories will be a result of cheating.
“As President Trump told me last week, it really will save America,” Representative Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, recently told a right-leaning media outlet in Florida, of the push to enact the measure that passed the House. “If we don’t, we lose the midterms and we lose the country.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/us/politics/republicans-vote-fraud-id-midterms.html