Biden plans dealt crushing blow by fellow Democrat

President Joe Biden has acknowledged his hopes of overhauling the election system are likely to fail after two fellow Democrats came out against them.

Mr Biden has backed the hugely controversial step of ditching the Senate filibuster to pass the bills.

But Senator Kyrsten Sinema said she refused to worsen the "disease of division infecting our country".

At the Capitol to arm-twist lawmakers, Mr Biden conceded he was "not sure" his plans would work.

The filibuster requires a 60% majority to pass certain legislation in the Senate. The upper chamber of Congress is currently split 50-50 between the two parties.

No Republicans support the two Democratic-proposed plans, the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Among other things, the bills would impose federal standards on elections that would supersede the current patchwork of state-by-state rules.

On Thursday, Mr Biden went to Congress in an effort to rally lawmakers to do away with the filibuster so he could get the legislation passed.

But emerging from a meeting that lasted over an hour, he acknowledged that opposition from two key Democratic lawmakers was likely to scupper his plans.

"The honest to God answer is I don't know whether we can get this done," Mr Biden said.

"As long as I'm in the White House, as long as I'm engaged at all, I'm going to be fighting," he continued.

Ms Sinema, an Arizona senator, and another Democrat, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, have both said that they would not support a change to the filibuster rule.

Speaking on the floor of the Senate on Thursday, Ms Sinema said she supported the bills, but could not back Mr Biden's "short-sighted" plans to destroy the norms of the upper chamber.

"When one party need only negotiate with itself, policy will inextricably be pushed from the middle towards the extremes," she added.

In a statement later on Thursday reiterating his position, Mr Manchin quoted Mr Biden's friend, the late former Senator Robert Byrd, who once warned against any attempt to scrap the filibuster.

"We must never, ever, ever, ever tear down the only wall, the necessary fence, that this nation has against the excesses of the executive branch and the resultant haste and tyranny of the majority," Mr Byrd said.

Democrats have argued that the voting bills were needed to push back against recent voting laws enacted in state legislatures controlled by Republicans who argue that election security needs to be boosted.

But Mr Biden's incendiary rhetoric - likening Republican measures such as requiring ID to vote to the 1960s Civil Rights era when billy clubs, fire hoses and police dogs were used against black protesters - was described as "a little too far" by one of the president's own allies, Senator Dick Durbin, on Wednesday.

During his presidency, Donald Trump urged the Senate to remove the filibuster to secure funding for his proposed southern border wall.

While top Republican Mitch McConnell had removed the 60-vote threshold for confirming judicial nominees, he refused to take the so-called nuclear option and eliminate it altogether for legislation.