The House Administration Committee on Thursday is set to introduce new election legislation titled the Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act, a broad proposal that would establish uniform federal standards for national elections.
The bill incorporates major provisions from the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, previously led by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas. Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., said the proposal is intended to strengthen election safeguards while maintaining access to voting. He added that the bill’s guardrails “will improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat.”
Under the legislation, first-time voter registrants would be required to provide proof of U.S. citizenship, and voters casting ballots in federal elections would need to present a photo ID. The measure would also prohibit ranked-choice voting in federal races, require states to use auditable paper ballots instead of electronic slips, and tighten voter roll maintenance requirements.
Mail-in voting provisions would ban universal mail-in ballots, requiring voters to request a ballot, mandate that mail ballots be received by Election Day to be counted, and prohibit third-party ballot collection practices commonly referred to as ballot harvesting.
