California Common Cause is pleased to announce that Rey López-Calderón will become the organization’s new executive director as of January 1, 2019. López-Calderón has worked for more than 20 years in faith, labor, education, and political organizing. He takes the helm of our nonpartisan, grassroots state organization from Kathay Feng, who has led the state organization since 2005 and the national redistricting work since 2013. She will now focus solely on redistricting reform.

California Common Cause will co-host community meetings in Inglewood, North Hollywood, Pasadena, Redondo Beach, Sherman Oaks and West Los Angeles to give residents the opportunity to decide where they want to vote in 2020 when community-oriented vote centers replace neighborhood polling places. The meetings are part of a series of 33 community meetings across the county sponsored by Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan's office.

With polls closed, California Common Cause reports the 866-OUR-VOTE Election Protection hotline received 2,000 calls from voters with questions and voters experiencing problems at the polls. This surpassed the call volume from the last midterm election, likely due to higher voter turnout and changes in how and where voters cast ballots.

California Common Cause is working to ensure votes count across the state. The nonpartisan, nonprofit will have hundreds of trained volunteers in the field and answering the 866-OUR-VOTE hotline to help voters who have questions, concerns or spot voter suppression tactics.

With Election Day just three weeks away, Californians who have questions about voting can now get answers via text message. Text “election protection” to 97779, and a trained, nonpartisan Election Protection volunteer will help now through Election Day.