US President Joe Biden speaks during a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre at the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

 US Democrats and Republicans are in a knockdown, drawn-out fight over voting laws - one the White House said is a major priority for US President Joe Biden.

On Tuesday, Biden spoke in the US city of Philadelphia, claiming the GOP is trying to chip away at voters' rights via the passage of new laws by multiple state legislatures.

"They want to make it so hard and inconvenient that they hope people don't vote at all," Biden said.

"This year alone, 17 states have enacted - not just proposed, but enacted - 28 new laws to make it harder for Americans to vote," Biden said.

The president's speech came eight months after former president Donald Trump claimed he lost the election due to cheating in a number of districts, and Republicans are pushing for laws they believe will thwart future discrepancies at the ballot box.

Biden said his party will fight back.

"We must pass the For the People Act," Biden said, referring to a sweeping legislation passed in the House but blocked by Senate Republicans. "It's a national imperative."

The bill, which has no GOP support in the Senate, needs 10 Republican votes to pass.

The speech came after Republican-led states, including Florida and Georgia, recently put in place a number of new voting laws.

In Texas, the issue grabbed nationwide headlines this week, as over 50 Democratic members of the state's legislature boarded a plane and left, in a bid to paralyze the Texas House of Representatives before a vote on voting laws could be taken.

Two-thirds of the House's 150 members must be present for a vote to occur, and State Governor Greg Abbott threatened to have the members arrested.

The lawmakers "will be cabined inside the Texas Capitol until they get their job done," the governor told KVUE ABC, a local TV station, in an interview earlier this week.

For his part, Biden has put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of the issue for their party, but the White House said Biden can push the agenda via public speeches.

"Democrats fear that Republicans are taking steps that will suppress the vote and affect how votes get counted in future elections," Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua.

"There are lawsuits underway regarding some of the state election bills that have been enacted. Courts will rule on them over the course of the coming year," West said.

Christopher Galdieri, an assistant professor at Saint Anselm College, told Xinhua he believes some sort of voting bill will be passed by Congress this year, although it might not be the For the People Act that Biden is pushing.

"This is an issue lots of Democratic constituencies care a lot about...[But] there's not a ton of consensus within the party on these issues, or much chance of GOP buy-in, which means every Democratic vote is crucial," Galdieri said.