GOP lawmakers around the US push for restrictions on voting

[...] research has shown that in-person fraud at the polls is extremely rare, and critics of these restrictions warn that they will hurt mostly poor people, minorities and students — all of whom tend to vote Democratic — as well as the elderly.

Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, for example, is backing a proposal to automatically register people to vote using their motor vehicle paperwork and to offer early voting for 12 days before Election Day.

Many of the restrictive laws became possible after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 struck down a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act that required certain states and counties, largely in the South, to get Justice Department approval before changing their election laws.

Kevin Hall, spokesman for the Iowa Secretary of State, said the voter ID legislation proposed there would provide for photo identification cards to anyone who needs one and would also update voting system technology.

Over the past few years, "states and localities were emboldened unlike ever before in employing a wide range of tactics to deny voting rights to people of color and people with disabilities," said Scott Simpson with the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Trump has claimed without evidence that as many as 5 million people voted illegally in the presidential election, complaining that the voter rolls include dead people, non-citizens and people registered in multiple states.