Election Protection

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, a nonpartisan good-government group, reported an unusually high number of calls from people experiencing problems voting, which could indicate higher turnout and confusion over changes in polling places, said spokeswoman Kati Phillips.

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.

Instead of the properly integrated computer program that was needed, the agency launched in April with disparate computer systems that didn’t automatically link together, according to advocates who have been working closely with the DMV on the new “motor voter” system. That meant DMV workers had to manually link information from various systems during transactions between April and September, when an integrated system was put in place, said Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause.

In celebration of National Voter Registration Day, California Common Cause is asking all likely voters in California to use its new tool to verify that they are registered to vote at their current address.