Democrats revise bill on elections

WASHINGTON » Senate Democrats unveiled a pared back elections bill Tuesday in hopes of kickstarting their stalled push to counteract new laws in Republican states that could make it more difficult to cast a ballot.

But the new compromise legislation is likely doomed to fail in the 50-50 Senate, facing the same lockstep Republican opposition that scuttled their previous attempts to pass an even more sweeping bill. The GOP blasted the earlier measure as “unnecessary” and a “partisan power grab.”

Republican-controlled legislatures have enacted restrictions over the past year in the name of election security that will make it harder to vote and could make the administration of the elections more subject to partisan influence.

The revised legislation was negotiated for weeks by a group of Democratic senators and includes many of the same provisions as the previous bill, known as the For the People Act.

It would establish national rules for running elections, limit partisanship in the drawing of congressional districts and force the disclosure of many anonymous donors who spend big to influence elections, according to a summary obtained by The Associated Press.

But it also includes a number of changes sought by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who is the chamber’s most conservative Democrat. That includes provisions that would limit, but not prohibit, state voter ID requirements, as well as the elimination of a proposed overhaul of the Federal Election Commission, which was intended to alleviate partisan gridlock at the election watchdog agency.