Chief Inspector Megan Williamson processes absentee ballots at the Hawthorne Library on Madison's East Side on Election Day Nov. 8, 2022. A voting bill introduced by Wisconsin Republican Congressman Bryan Steil would put new restrictions on how absentee ballots are handled as well as make other changes that voting rights advocates contend would increase barriers for voters.. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Legislation proposed Friday by Wisconsin Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil would require voters in every state to present a photo ID for a federal election, require states to verify that anyone registering to vote in a federal election is a U.S. citizen, and require paper ballots in all federal elections.

The bill also would put sharp restrictions on a person’s ability to collect ballots on behalf of other people. It would ban universal voting by mail and ranked choice voting in federal elections.

A press release from Steil’s office states that  the bill — dubbed the “Make Elections Great Again Act” — consists of “baseline requirements in place for state election administration.”

“Americans should be confident their elections are being run with integrity — including commonsense voter ID requirements, clean voter rolls, and citizenship verification,” Steil, who represents Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District and chairs the U.S. House Committee on House Administration, said in a statement. The bill would “improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat.”

“The MEGA Act is a crucial step toward restoring trust in our democratic process and delivers long-overdue, common sense reforms that voters across our state and nation expect,” Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming said in a statement.

But voting rights advocates said provisions in the legislation would increase needless barriers for voters, and that the legislation itself undermines trust in an election system that is already secure.

“The MEGA Act is a seriously problematic piece of anti-voter legislation. It will disenfranchise millions of voters across the country,” said Nick Ramos, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

“This is a sweeping federal takeover of election administration,” said Samuel Liebert, Wisconsin state director for All Voting Is Local.

Provisions in the bill highlight claims that have been made by various activists and groups about voter fraud that election experts have argued are unsubstantiated.

The bill requires every state to make an agreement to share information with the U.S. attorney general about “evidence of potential fraud” in the state’s elections for federal office, including voting or attempts to vote by ineligible people. States without such an agreement would not be allowed to use federal funds from the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to administer their elections.

Liebert said under that provision and others, the U.S. attorney general could claw back federal funds on technical or even subjective grounds. “That puts local clerks at risk of losing the very resources needed to run secure elections,” he said, “leading to fewer poll workers, longer lines, and slower results.”

The bill requires a prospective voter to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register and a photo ID to vote, including by absentee ballot. That could block a number of eligible voters from casting ballots, he said, including the elderly, students, married women with name changes, rural voters, voters with disabilities and low-income voters lacking easy access to passports or certified birth certificates.

“There is no evidence this is needed: Noncitizen voting is already illegal and extraordinarily rare,” Liebert said.

The bill includes new restrictions on voting by mail in federal elections. 

It would outlaw universal voting by mail — a practice that is in place in eight states and the District of Columbia, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In addition, it would require mail-in ballot envelopes to include a postal bar code for tracking.

Absentee ballots would be required to arrive by the time the polls close in order to be counted, except for overseas voters and voters in the military. Currently some states allow absentee ballots to be counted if they have been postmarked by Election Day and arrive within a set number of days afterward. 

Mail-in ballots could not be counted until after the polls close under the bill. In 13 states, counting mail-in ballots can start ahead of Election Day under their current laws. Among the rest, some, including Wisconsin, allow counting to start before the polls close, while others don’t allow them to be counted until after the polls close. In Wisconsin, efforts to allow the counting of mail-in ballots to begin before Election Day have so far not succeeded. 

The bill would claw back federal funds from states that don’t follow its requirements for handling mail ballots.

Language in the bill also prevents people from distributing, ordering, requesting, delivering or possessing more than four ballots for a federal election, and requires that the ballot they’re handling must be associated with the individual, a family member or a person for whom the individual is a caregiver.

The aim is to outlaw “ballot harvesting,” Steil said in his press release.

A 2020 report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University said attacks on ballot collection by calling it “ballot harvesting” have conflated two practices — illegal tampering with absentee ballots, and the benign practice of helping voters who need help in casting and returning an absentee ballot.

“Some voters need this assistance in order to cast a ballot,” the Brennan Center report states.

In the MEGA Act, “The limits on possession and return of mail ballots — including felony penalties — would make it harder for caregivers, family members, and community members to help voters who need assistance,” Liebert said. “This is especially concerning for voters with disabilities, older voters, and voters living in rural or tribal communities.”

The bill requires all states to verify the eligibility of voters to take part in federal elections every 30 days “through the use of all verification resources available to the State,” including the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system maintained by the Department of Homeland Security.

In the course of those monthly checks, states must remove any duplicate registrations and any voters not eligible because of a criminal conviction, death, change of residence or because they’re identified as a noncitizen by the SAVE system.

The databases the bill prescribes are prone to errors, however, Liebert said, which “dramatically increases the risk of eligible voters being wrongly removed.”

Another provision gives private citizens the right to sue election officials whom they allege have allowed noncitizens to vote. That would create “a chilling effect that prioritizes risk avoidance over voter access,” Liebert added.

Liebert said the net effect of the bill would be a virtual federal takeover of the state’s role in administering elections.

“It strips states and local election officials of flexibility and imposes one-size-fits-all rules that don’t reflect how elections actually work on the ground — especially in a state like Wisconsin with decentralized administration,” he said.

“This bill is premised on the false idea that our elections are fundamentally broken,” Liebert said. “Election officials — including in Wisconsin — have shown again and again that elections are secure. Codifying suspicion into law doesn’t strengthen democracy; it undermines public confidence and puts election workers in harm’s way.”

Enrique Casiano addresses a rally at the Wisconsin State Capitol on Sept. 4, 2025, during a strike by UAW-represented employees against Mercyhealth East Clinic in Janesville. (Photo courtesy of Enrique Casiano)

Among the Democrats running for the chance to challenge the Republican incumbent in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District are a nurse, a union leader, a working class activist and a Hispanic professional.

A fifth candidate, Enrique Casiano of Janesville, happens to check all four of those boxes. A 47-year-old registered nurse, Casiano said his decision to join the Democratic field of hopefuls for the 1st District seat arose during a four-month strike at the Mercyhealth East Clinic in Janesville, where he is a leader in United Auto Workers Local 95.

The walkout of UAW-represented nurses, physical therapists, medical assistants and maintenance employees at the clinic started July 2, centered on health care costs, wages and security for employees.

“When September came around we were still on strike,” Casiano recalled. “I was thinking to myself, What in the world is going on? Why would a company do this to their employees? Why would this even be allowed?”

He and fellow union members blamed federal labor laws. Casiano said they have “no teeth” and don’t hold employers accountable.

“That has to be changed at a national level,” Casiano said. “That’s what motivated me to get out there and run for Congress.”

The strike ended Nov. 3, when the clinic management and the union ratified a new contract. The agreement led to raises that were higher than nonunion employees received elsewhere in the Mercyhealth system, Casiano said, although still less than what the union had originally sought. Health care costs for employees will be “basically three times” what they were previously, he added.

“This was a big concession,” Casiano said. “Something I told the membership, this should be a wake-up call for everybody to vote for someone who’s going to do something about the health care crisis in our nation.”

Casiano argues that health care is a human right and government should do more to prevent health care costs from leaving people in debt or sending them into bankruptcy.

“If you have the money, you’ll get care,” he said. “If you don’t have the money, I’ve seen how many people end up being homeless or go into great debt because of their health.”

He supports Medicare for All, but also favors giving states greater freedom to regulate the health care systems. He opposes consolidation among health care groups and favors breaking up large hospital and health care systems, as well as keeping for-profit businesses, including private equity and venture capital firms, out of health care.

“The current system rewards profiting from people’s health care crisis,” Casiano said. “It is not a system of prevention and rewarding the best health care outcomes and practices.”

Casiano said that updating the 1930s-era National Labor Relations Act with laws that would strengthen the rights of workers to union representation is a top priority of his. If elected he would also seek to enact stronger federal laws against wage theft and against misclassifying workers as independent contractors with fewer protections. He said that he also wants “real tax relief to the working class” instead of the wealthy.

Casiano is one of five Democrats vying for the chance to challenge U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, the Republican incumbent in the 1st District now in his fourth term.

“I’m part of the working class. I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a politician,” Casiano said — although he readily acknowledged that every other Democrat competing for the nomination could make the same claim.

“Pretty much everybody running this time around, we’re all just working class people who want to see a change in the 1st District,” he said.

The rest of the Democratic field includes ironworker Randy Bryce, emergency room nurse Mitchell Berman, Racine community activist Gage Stills and university administrator Miguel Aranda.

As he shapes his campaign, Casiano is leaning into his background as a health care professional, a union activist and also a member of the Hispanic community.

He said the Trump administration’s round-ups of immigrants — which has caught up U.S. citizens in addition to people without legal immigration status — has a personal dimension.

“It’s sad that I, when I go to Milwaukee, can be stopped [by police] just because of the way I look and the way I talk,” he said. “At the national level, we’re attacking specific [ethnic groups of] people, which we’ve never done before.”

The 1st Congressional District has been solidly Republican since the mid-1990s. Steil succeeded Paul Ryan in the office when Ryan stepped aside  in 2018 after a 20-year tenure. A corporate lawyer and former Ryan aide, Steil won with margins of 9 to 10 points in 2022 and 2024.

The Cook Political Report has rated the district as likely Republican in 2026, and gives the GOP a 2-point advantage based on past presidential elections.

Casiano contends political apathy accounts for Steil’s success. “In the last election, many of my coworkers, they just did not go out to vote,” he said. “It’s not winnable, somebody told me [because] it’s all about the money.”

He contends that 2026 can be different.

“What’s changed now is the Trump administration and how messed up everything is going,” Casiano said. “Only people that have blinders on will say everything is OK, because it’s not.”

Casiano said he knows he’s a long-shot candidate, but he believes Steil is vulnerable and that people can be motivated to vote if candidates reach out to them.

“I know he has let down a lot of his constituents,” Casiano said. “We know he’s not out there for the farmers, or some of the small businesses” in the district, he added. “That’s the big message we’ve got to bring forward.”

He believes enough people have stayed away from the polls in the past to make a difference in the outcome for 2026.

“We have to go and start talking to Black and brown people in our community and get them out to vote,” Casiano said. “This is what I’m going to be fighting for.”

Miguel Aranda speaks with Democratic Party members after a party meeting in Kenosha on Nov. 6, 2025. (Photo courtesy of Aranda congressional campaign)

In Miguel Aranda’s bid to be the Democratic nominee for Congress in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, the college administrator says he brings a variety of assets.

One is local political experience. In his second term on the Whitewater School District school board, he serves as vice president. Board elections are nonpartisan.

“I’m not in politics because I want to make a career out of it,” Aranda said in a recent interview. “I can work across the aisle.”

Aranda, 35, is one of a growing number of hopefuls aiming for the Democratic nomination to run against Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, now in his fourth term. Other declared Democratic candidates are ironworker Randy Bryce, emergency room nurse Mitchell Berman, Racine community activist Gage Stills and Janesville union leader Enrique Casiano.

“I’m the only one who has won a political campaign,” Aranda said. “I know how important it is to bring people together and stay united.”

The Cook Political Report’s most recent update, Dec. 9, maintained the 1st District’s projected 2026 outcome as “likely Republican.” Despite such forecasts, in the current cycle the district has drawn a broader array of potential Democratic opponents than it has seen in years.

The party’s last contested primary came in 2020. In 2024, what was expected to be at least a three-way primary race was avoided after Peter Barca’s late entry into the contest led the rest of the field to drop out by summer.

Aranda is the associate director of a college readiness program at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

A Spanish speaker and an active Democratic party volunteer for the last 15 years, Aranda has organized bilingual workshops at party events. When the Whitewater school district held a referendum to raise property taxes in support of school district operations in 2022, Aranda said, he did presentations directed to the local Spanish-speaking community.

Public education is one of his top campaign priorities, he said. While funding is primarily a state and local function, the federal role in supporting public schools is important, he said, and he opposes the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the federal Department of Education.

“There’s a lack of public education funding,” Aranda said. “Local constituents are going to feel it in their pocket. Republicans aren’t doing much to assist in our investment for the future.”

Aranda’s parents, both Mexican immigrants, settled in Whitewater in the early 1990s, he said, and he grew up in the community, which straddles the line between Walworth and Jefferson counties.

“When we came to Whitewater, the only people that helped us were public school teachers,” Aranda said of his family’s experience.

He said immigration reform is another of his campaign’s concerns. On that, “there’s a lot of things at the local level we cannot do,” Aranda said. “I truly believe immigration reform that is comprehensive and fair will help not just public education but a lot of the scarcity and pain that people are feeling.”

Aranda has a master’s in business administration. He’s also held a variety of other jobs, he said, giving him the sort of direct experience he believes many voters can identify with.

“I’ve worked in call centers, custodial services and fast food,” Aranda said. “People want a good, stable job — this message is very simple. That’s what I want to guarantee for others.”

He supports a proposal advanced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, for a federal law setting the minimum pay for public school teachers at $60,000.

“Republicans say you can’t do that, but now you see ICE [agents] offered more money and debt forgiveness,” Aranda said.

While Aranda is not the only Hispanic entrant in the Democratic contest, he considers an ability to appeal to Hispanic voters to be one of his selling points. The 1st District has “a lot of Latino potential voters,” Aranda said. “They’ve been frustrated with both political parties.”

Aranda said he’s been traveling throughout the district to meet with Democratic Party groups and solicit their support. He also has been trying to educate and engage casual voters and non-voters, he said.

He described a recent visit to a college organization of Latino students. After introducing himself and his campaign for the 1st District, “Nobody knew who their representative was,” he said.

“Some don’t know what a Republican or a Democrat is and what they stand for,” he added. “Republicans take advantage of that, too.”

Aranda believes motivating more people who have been largely detached from politics to take an interest and go to the polls can help Democrats flip the seat.

“I think there’s a huge opportunity there,” he said. “I think there’s an opportunity for younger voters, too — for their voice to be heard.”