In Michigan and Pennsylvania, key battlegrounds that President Joe Biden flipped back blue in 2020, as well as in Massachusetts, Republicans are at the beginning stages of a lengthy process to put proposed limits directly to the voters.

Voting rights advocates who connect the moves to the proliferation of restrictive voting laws advanced in states where the GOP enjoys total control say they fear those efforts will prove successful and spread to other states where such initiatives are legally possible.

“It certainly seems that these tactics by politicians in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are part of a larger national strategy to limit the freedom to vote,” Joanna Lydgate, CEO of the States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan voting rights group, told NBC News. “This is about making it harder for Americans to vote.”