President Donald Trump's challenges to the Electoral College have a silver lining as they might ultimately spur reforms and strengthen U.S. elections.
Republican state legislators are pushing for reforms, Politico reported, including in Georgia, after Trump's loss led to Democrats taking both Senate seats in the runoff election earlier this month.
Failing to combat the Democrats' push for mass mail balloting, fights against voter ID and signature verification stand to make winning elections difficult for Republicans, who are vulnerable to the voting power of Democrat-run U.S. cities, according to Alice O'Lenick to the Gwinnett Daily Post.
"They don't have to change all of them, but they've got to change the major parts of them so that we at least have a shot at winning," the Gwinnett County Republican on the board of elections in suburban Atlanta told the Post.
Trump plans to remain involved in "election integrity" priorities, Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller told JustTheNews, per Politico.
Voter ID, popular in Pew Research Center polling, is a longtime Republican election law bulwark and is frequently denounced as a form of voter suppression by liberal critics.
"They are students and other young people, they're communities of color, they're older adults who are no longer driving, people with low income, people with disabilities," VoteRiders founder Kathleen Unger told Politico, estimating up to 25 million voter-eligible Americans lacked a government-issued photo ID.
Georgia already requires a photo ID to vote in person, but not for requesting or returning an absentee ballot, the latter of which state Sen. Larry Walker said he is "very supportive" of and expects to change, per the report.
"I think that has the most likelihood of being signed into law," Walker, vice chair of the Republican Senate caucus, told Politico. "A large percentage of my constituents have lost faith in the integrity of our election system.
"So we're going to try to address some things that we feel like can restore the public's confidence in the system."
He added: "I don't think any of these ideas are burdensome or overly restrictive or lead to what I would consider voter suppression."
Georgia is a state still governed by Republicans, despite Trump and Senate losses, while blue wall states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin still are run by Democrat governors likely to veto election law reform.
"Looking at the disposition of the governments in them, I'm not sure that really a lot of them are going to be able to go the distance the way that Georgia will," the Honest Elections Project's Jason Snead told Politico. "But I think that there is certainly a lot of interest in Pennsylvania, in Michigan, in Wisconsin.
"Election integrity, election security, these issues aren't going anywhere," he added. "And I firmly believe that if a legislature in a particular state does not pass a reform this cycle, it does not mean it'll never pass a reform."
Those states might be the most in need of reform, according to Pennsylvania state Rep. Seth Grove, the House state government committee chair, to Politico.
"It isn't a secret that further election law changes must be made," he said.