WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Election law changes in North Carolina could once again face federal scrutiny as part of a proposed update to the Voting Rights Act being floated on Capitol Hill.

• Under the update bill, states would require pre-clearance of their new election laws if they had 10 or more violations with one at the state level in the past 25 years or 15 violations at any level statewide in the last 25 years
• North Carolina’s three Democrats in Congress have signed on as co-sponsors
• If it passes the U.S. House, the legislation would likely face an uphill fight in the Republican-controlled Senate

The legislation, dubbed the Voting Rights Advancement Act, introduces a new threshold for when certain jurisdictions would need to get their voting and election laws pre-approved by the U.S. Department of Justice. North Carolina would meet that threshold, according to the office of the bill’s author, Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala.

North Carolina’s three Democrats in Congress have signed on as co-sponsors of the proposed legislation.

“North Carolina has been embarrassingly involved in voter suppression,” said Rep. GK Butterfield, D-1st District, citing voter ID laws and redistricting plans that at both the legislative and congressional levels as examples.

For years under the Voting Rights Act, dozens of North Carolina counties had to get election laws pre-approve by the DOJ to ensure they were not discriminatory. Then in 2013, the Supreme Court effectively struck down the pre-clearance requirement, saying the formula being used to evaluate which municipalities required pre-approval was outdated. The court left the door open to a replacement formula.

Since the court stepped in, several states have adopted new laws that voting rights advocates argue suppress the vote. That includes a 2013 Voter ID law in North Carolina, which was ultimately struck down by the courts for targeting African Americans with “almost surgical precision.”

“Getting to that point and achieving that result took years of arduous and expensive litigation, and that could have been avoided if the pre-clearance provisions were in place,” said Max Feldman with the Brennan Center for Justice, which supports the proposed legislation.

Under the update bill, states would require pre-clearance of their new election laws if they had 10 or more violations with one at the state level in the past 25 years or 15 violations at any level statewide in the last 25 years.

In recent weeks, Butterfield and other lawmakers have traveled the country for hearings about voting rights. They stopped in Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina, among other states. Those Democrat-led hearings served, in part, as a way to build the case for the bill.

The legislation so far only has Democratic co-sponsors in the House. Republicans are not jumping on board. In the past, when the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized, it passed with bipartisan support.

In a statement, a spokesman for Congressman Mark Walker, R-6th District, wrote that they are concerned the legislation “violates the key tenets of federalism” and “overrides the will of the people.”

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the North Carolina’s Senate President, who has been a key player in election legislation in the Tar Heel state, declined to weigh in on the proposal.

If it passes the U.S. House, the legislation would likely face an uphill fight in the Republican-controlled Senate.