Democrats started pushing on Wednesday for probably the most substantial growth of voting rights in a half-century, laying the groundwork within the Senate for what could be a basic change to the methods voters get to the polls and elections are run.

At a contentious listening to on Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders made a passionate case for a invoice that might mandate computerized voter registration nationwide, broaden early and mail-in voting, finish gerrymandering that skews congressional districts for most partisan benefit and curb the affect of cash in politics.

The effort is taking form as Republicans have launched greater than 250 payments to limit voting in 43 states and have continued to unfold false accusations of fraud and impropriety within the 2020 election. It comes simply months after these claims, unfold by President Donald J. Trump as he sought to cling to energy, fueled a lethal riot on the Capitol on Jan. 6 that confirmed how deeply his occasion had come to imagine within the delusion of a stolen election.

Republicans had been unapologetic of their opposition to the measure, with some overtly arguing that if Democrats succeeded in making it simpler for Americans to vote and in enacting the opposite adjustments within the invoice, it might probably place their occasion completely within the minority.

“Any American who thinks that the fight for a full and fair democracy is over is sadly and sorely mistaken,” mentioned Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the bulk chief. “Today, in the 21st century, there is a concerted, nationwide effort to limit the rights of citizens to vote and to truly have a voice in their own government.”

Mr. Schumer’s uncommon look at a committee assembly underscored the stakes, not simply for the election course of however for his occasion’s personal political future. He known as the proposed voting rollbacks in dozens of states — together with Georgia, Iowa and Arizona — an “existential threat to our democracy” reminiscent of the Jim Crow segregationist legal guidelines of the previous.

He chanted “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at Republicans who had been selling them.

It was the beginning of an uphill battle by Senate Democrats, who’ve characterised what they name the For the People Act because the civil rights crucial of fashionable occasions, to beat divisions in their very own ranks and steer round Republican opposition to shepherd it into legislation. Doing so might require them to vary Senate guidelines to eradicate the filibuster, as soon as utilized by segregationists to dam civil rights measures within the 1960s.

Republicans signaled they had been able to struggle. Conceding that permitting extra individuals to vote would most likely damage their candidates, they denounced the laws, handed by the House this month, as an influence seize by Democrats intent on federalizing elections to offer themselves a everlasting political benefit. They insisted that it was the precise of states to set their very own election legal guidelines, together with those who make it more durable to vote, and warned that Democrats’ proposal may result in rampant fraud, which specialists say has by no means been discovered to be widespread.

“This is an attempt by one party to write the rules of our political system,” mentioned Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican chief, who has spent a lot of his profession opposing such adjustments.

“Talk about ‘shame,’” he added later.

Some Republicans resorted to lies or distortions to sentence the measure, falsely claiming that Democrats had been in search of to cheat by enfranchising undocumented immigrants or encouraging unlawful voting. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas mentioned the invoice aimed to register hundreds of thousands of unauthorized immigrants, although that might stay illegal underneath the measure.

The conflict laid naked simply how sharply the 2 events have diverged on the difficulty of voting rights, which attracted bipartisan help for years after the civil rights motion however extra lately has develop into a bitter partisan battleground. At occasions, Republicans and Democrats seemed to be wrestling with irreconcilably totally different views of the issues plaguing the election system.

Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, the highest Republican on the Senate Rules Committee, which convened the listening to, mentioned states had been taking applicable steps to revive public confidence after 2020 by imposing legal guidelines that require voters to point out identification earlier than voting and limiting so-called poll harvesting, the place others accumulate voters’ accomplished absentee ballots and submit them to election officers. He mentioned that if Democrats had been allowed to hurry by adjustments on the nationwide degree, “chaos will reign in the next election and voters will have less confidence than they currently do.”

The suggestion piqued Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota and the committee chairwoman, who shot again that it was the present elections system — an uneven patchwork of state legal guidelines and evolving voting guidelines — that had brought about “chaos” at polling locations.

“Chaos is what we’ve seen in the last years — five-hour or six-hour lines in states like Arizona to vote. Chaos is purging names of longtime voters from a voter list so they can’t go vote in states like Georgia,” she mentioned. “What this bill tries to do is to simply make it easier for people to vote and take the best practices that what we’ve seen across the country, and put it into law as we are allowed to do under the Constitution.”

With Republicans unified in opposition to them, Democrats’ greatest hope for enacting the laws more and more seems to be to attempt to leverage its voting protections — to justify triggering the Senate’s so-called nuclear possibility: the elimination of the filibuster rule requiring 60 votes, relatively than a easy majority, to advance most payments.

Even that could be a prohibitively heavy raise, although, no less than within the invoice’s present kind. Liberal activists who are spending tens of millions of dollars promoting it insist that the package deal should transfer as one invoice. But Senator Joe Manchin III, a centrist West Virginia Democrat whose help they would wish each to vary the filibuster guidelines and to push by the elections invoice, mentioned on Wednesday that he wouldn’t help it in its present kind.

Speaking to reporters within the Capitol, Mr. Manchin mentioned he feared that pushing by partisan adjustments would create extra “division” that the nation couldn’t afford after the Jan. 6 assault, and as a substitute recommended narrowing the invoice.

“There’s so much good in there, and so many things I think all of us should be able to be united around voting rights, but it should be limited to the voting rights,” he mentioned. “We’re going to have a piece of legislation that might divide us even further on a partisan basis. That shouldn’t happen.”

But it’s unclear whether or not even main adjustments may win Republican help within the Senate. As written, the greater than 800-page invoice, which passed the House 220 to 210 mostly along party lines, is probably the most bold elections overhaul in generations, chock-full of provisions that specialists say would drive up turnout, significantly amongst minorities who are likely to vote Democratic. Many of them are anathema to Republicans.

Its voting provisions alone would create minimal requirements for states, neutering voter ID legal guidelines, restoring voting rights to former felons, and putting in necessities like computerized voter registration and no-excuse mail-in balloting. Many of the restrictive legal guidelines proposed by Republicans within the states would move in the opposite direction.

The invoice would additionally require states to make use of impartial commissions to attract nonpartisan congressional districts, a change that might weaken the benefits of Republicans who management the bulk of state legislatures at present in cost of drawing these maps. It would pressure tremendous PACs to reveal their massive donors and create a brand new public marketing campaign financing system for congressional candidates.

Democrats additionally mentioned they nonetheless deliberate to advance a separate invoice restoring a key enforcement provision within the Voting Rights Act of 1965, after a 2013 Supreme Court ruling gutted it. The ruling paved the way in which for many of the restrictive state legal guidelines Democrats are actually combating.

In the listening to room on Wednesday, Republicans ticked by a protracted listing of provisions they didn’t like, together with a restructuring of the Federal Election Commission to make it extra partisan and punitive, a number of election administration adjustments they predicted would trigger mass “chaos” if carried out and the general public marketing campaign financing system.

“This bill is the single most dangerous bill this committee has ever considered,” Mr. Cruz mentioned. “This bill is designed to corrupt the election process permanently, and it is a brazen and shameless power grab by Democrats.”

Mr. Cruz falsely claimed that the invoice would register undocumented immigrants to vote and accused Democrats of wanting probably the most violent criminals to forged ballots, too.

In truth, it’s unlawful for noncitizens to vote, and the invoice would do nothing to vary that or a requirement that individuals registering to vote swear they’re residents. It would prolong the franchise to hundreds of thousands of former felons, as some states already do, however solely after they’ve served their sentences.

Though few senators talked about him by title, Mr. Trump and his false claims of election fraud hung closely over the controversy.

To make their case, Republicans turned to 2 officers who backed an effort to overturn then-President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s election victory. Mac Warner, the secretary of state of West Virginia, and Todd Rokita, the legal professional normal of Indiana, each supported a Texas lawsuit late final yr asking the Supreme Court to invalidate the election leads to key battleground states Mr. Biden gained, citing groundless accusations of voting improprieties being unfold by Mr. Trump.

On Wednesday, Democrats balked when Mr. Rokita, a former Republican congressman, asserted that their proposed adjustments would “open our elections up to increased voter fraud and irregularities” like those that he mentioned had brought about widespread voter distrust within the 2020 consequence.

Senator Jon Ossoff, a freshman Democrat from Georgia, chastised the legal professional normal, saying he was spreading misinformation and conspiracies.

“I take exception to the comments that you just made, Mr. Rokita, that public concern regarding the integrity of the recent election is born of anything but a deliberate and sustained misinformation campaign led by a vain former president unwilling to accept his own defeat,” Mr. Ossoff mentioned.

Mr. Rokita merely scoffed and repeated an earlier risk to sue to dam the laws from being carried out ought to it ever develop into legislation, a treatment that many Republican-led states would probably pursue if Democrats had been capable of win its enactment.

“You are entitled to your opinion, as misinformed as it may be, but I share the opinion of Americans,” Mr. Rokita mentioned.

Sixty-five p.c of voters imagine the election was free and truthful, in keeping with a Morning Consult poll performed in late January, however solely 32 p.c of Republicans imagine that.