Democrats all over the country are riding the tide of voters’ frustration with the long lines and election chaos caused by Republican vote-suppressing measures this election cycle. Florida legislators are pushing a bill to restore early voting days, while Michigan is considering implementing early voting and same-day voter registration. On the federal level, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) proposed a national reform Wednesday targeting the hours-long delays many Americans faced when they tried to vote.

The LINE Act would require federal polling place standards by January 2014 — just in time for the midterm elections. Boxer’s press release explains:

The LINE Act (or the Lines Interfere with National Elections Act) would require the Attorney General, in consultation with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), to issue new national standards by January 1, 2014 regarding the minimum number of voting machines, election workers, and other election resources that are necessary to conduct Federal elections on Election Day and during early voting periods. The bill explicitly states that the goal of minimum standards is to prevent a waiting time of more than one hour at any polling place.

Senator Boxer’s bill also would require states where voters endured long lines to implement remedial plans to fix the problems before the next federal election. Under the legislation, the Attorney General working with the EAC would identify states that had a substantial number of voters who waited more than 90 minutes to vote in the 2012 election. Those states would have to comply with a remedial plan to ensure voters would not face similar delays in the future.

After logistical chaos and nightmarish lines in critical swing states like Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, Boxer also wrote a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) asking him to assess and improve the Election Assistance Commission’s functionality. The EAC was established after the deeply controversial 2000 presidential election, but is currently operating without a single commissioner or executive director. Boxer’s bill is an attempt to revitalize the agency and allow it to set basic standards for states’ election procedures.

Secretary of State Ken Detzner (R-FL) plans to investigate the state’s dysfunctional elections this year, which led to marathon lines and the rejection of countless legitimate votes. Detzner told the Ethics and Elections Committee on Tuesday that he will send a special team to investigate problems in 5 so-called “under-performing” counties over the next several days.

Among these “under-performing” counties is Miami-Dade, where some voters were still waiting to vote after midnight. The Secretary speculated the “multitude of issues” could range from a lack of early voting sites to excessively long ballots. Detzner suggested that the 62 other counties that had smoother elections “did it right” but stopped short of blaming the 5 that did not:

REPORTER: So what are the criteria that you are going to be using what is a high performing versus an under-performing county?
DETZNER: Well that’s a very general term, and I don’t want to get into specifics of under-performing. Long lines are unacceptable to the citizens of Florida. That’s one of the major issues we’re going to address.

Detzner has changed his tune since the election’s immediate aftermath, when he insisted that he had no regrets about the disastrous election and claimed that the long lines meant voters actually “liked the voting hours.” Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL), who restricted early voting days and enacted other vote-suppressing legislation, also defended his election processes and telling reporters repeatedly that “we did the right thing.” Florida GOP members recently admitted that the new election laws were in fact intended to disenfranchise Democratic and minority voters.

While public records show billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam gave over $53 million to pro-GOP super PACs in the 2012 campaign, he gave about $100 million more to secretive 501(c)(4) groups that do not disclose donors, according to a Huffington Post report. And now, Adelson is reportedly attempting to leverage his massive pro-GOP investment to spur House Republicans to pass legislation that would help his company.

According to the report:

This coming week, Adelson plans to visit Washington, according to three separate GOP sources familiar with his travel schedule. While here, he’s arranged Hill meetings with at least one House GOP leader in which he is expected to discuss key issues, including possible changes to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the anti-bribery law that undergirds one federal probe into his casino network, according to a Republican attorney with knowledge of his plans.

Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands is under investigation in two countries for possible corrupt practices. By weakening the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, his company could potential be let off the hook for any misdeeds.

Adelson vowed in April to keep the bulk of his future political spending undisclosed, because he believed the media’s use of the phrase “casino mogul” when reporting on his donations was “not helpful to the person” he was trying to elect. The voters proved him correct on that: nearly all of his favored candidates lost on election day.

One Idaho state lawmaker is still in denial over election results and would like to see states challenge the legitimacy of Obama’s reelection. Last week, Idaho State Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll (R) amplified a debunked theory circulating Tea Party blogs, that claims Romney still has a chance to win if enough states refuse to participate in the Electoral College.

Nuxoll linked to the debunked idea in a tweet, afterward telling the Spokane Spokesman-Review “I don’t know if it’s realistic”:

Even though Obama won 51 percent of the popular vote, by Nuxoll’s reasoning, “states are going to have to stand up for our individual rights and for our collective rights” because he is “depriving us of our freedoms.”

Constitutional Accountability Center’s Emily Phelps explains why the idea that unhappy Republicans can prevent the Electoral College from reaching a “quorum” is completely wrong: “A quick reading shows that [Tea Party Nation's] Phillips has his voting bodies backward. There is no quorum requirement for the Electoral College. If pro-Romney electors boycotted the meeting as Phillips has urged, the others would simply meet without them and elect President Obama.”

The original story on World Net Daily, a conspiracy site that regularly pushes “birtherism”, now has a major caveat. The site’s editors added the note: “Since this column was posted it has been discovered that the premise presented about the Electoral College and the Constitution is in error. According to the 12th Amendment, a two-thirds quorum is required in the House of Representatives, not the Electoral College.”

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) told a radio host he completely agreed with her assertion that investigations are needed to determine why President Obama lost “every one” of the states with photo identification requirements for voting, yet won re-election. Cuccinelli, who has lost most of the major legal cases he has brought since taking office in 2010, told the host she was “preaching to the choir.”

On WMAL radio, hosts Brian Wilson and Cheri Jacobus pressed Cuccinelli about why he has not opened a major investigation into what they suggested was wide-spread voter fraud in Virginia — an assessment they made based on receiving unproven allegations by email from listeners. Studies have shown Americans are more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud. Cuccinelli endorsed the idea of such investigations, but noted that he lacks the statutory authority to do launch an investigation.

Cuccinelli backed Jacobus on her conspiracy theories:

JACOBUS: There needs to be a way for people to be able to report this stuff and have it looked into. I mean, just across the country, we’re hearing so many stories. And people can talk about it, but nothing seems to be done. And, in fact in these states where voter ID is required to vote…

WILSON: Photo ID.

JACOBUS: Photo ID. Voter photo ID. Obama lost every one of those states. He can’t win a state where photo ID is required. So clearly there’s something going on out there and until there’s a way to have something done about it where when you report it, you know it’s going to be looked into, the other side just says “Oh, well, you’re just poor losers,” and that sort of thing.

CUCCINELLI: Your tone suggests you’re a little upset with me. You’re preaching to the choir. I’m with you completely.

Listen to the interview:

Of course, real voter fraud can be reported to local police authorities for investigation. And while just four states had strict photo ID laws in effect in the 2012 election — deep red Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, and Tennessee — seven more had some photo ID laws in effect. Of those, Obama did carry four (Florida, Hawaii, Michigan, and New Hampshire).

Cuccinelli announced in December that he will run for governor in November 2013.

A spokesman for the Attorney General later appeared to walk-back his comments, telling the Virginian-Pilot, “There is no question that President Obama legitimately won re-election. Ken was simply talking about the fact that there were problems on election day which need to be addressed.”