California Common Cause Urges Top Elections Officials and Candidates to “Stand Up for Everyone’s Right to Vote”

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  • Leila Pedersen

“President Obama reminded Americans that ‘citizenship means standing up for everyone’s right to vote,'” stated Leila Pedersen, Policy Coordinator at Common Cause California. “We urge Secretary of State Bowen and prospective candidates to prioritize the recommendations of the President’s Commission on Election Administration for 2014 and beyond.”

“It should be the power of our vote, not the size of our bank account, that drives our democracy,” declared President Obama at the State of the Union.

“President Obama created a bi-partisan commission to find ways to improve the quality of the voter experience,” said Kathay Feng, executive director of Common Cause California. “The commission delivered that and more, including a range of practical proposals that would make it easier for Californians to register, vote and have their votes counted.”

Specifically, Common Cause California urged state leaders and technology experts to prioritize the following goals:

* With California’s adoption of Online Voter Registration, the next step should be to make it easily accessible to all voters on multiple platforms, including developing mobile apps, making it available in multiple languages and for people with people different abilities;
* California should expand opportunities to vote before Election Day by making Early Voting and Same Day Voting widely available;
* Secure, efficient and user-friendly electronic poll book technology should be developed, in order to give poll workers real-time access to the voter registration lists, allow them to better resolve voting problems, and offer portable voting.

A full copy of the President’s Commission report is available here.

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