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Voting & Elections 11.8.2022

CNN: Voting goes mostly smoothly on Election Day as baseless fraud claims swirl

“What we are seeing are things that we usually see on Election Day,” said Susannah Goodman, director of election security at Common Cause. “Sometimes voters are going in and one of the voting machines isn’t working, or lines are a little longer.”

Voting & Elections 11.7.2022

Associated Press: Twitter’s pared-down staff struggles with misinformation

Researchers tracking misinformation ahead of the midterms notified Twitter on Friday about three posts from well-known far-right figures that advanced debunked claims about election fraud. The posts remain up three days later. When Common Cause asked Twitter for an update on Monday, the platform said the posts were “under review.” Before Musk took over, Twitter responded much more quickly, said Jesse Littlewood, vice president for campaigns at Common Cause. The group said they had been in regular contact with Twitter staff before Musk took over. Now, they are getting a response from a generic email address. “We had been getting much faster decisions from them, sometimes within hours,” said Littlewood. Now, he said, “It’s like pushing the button for the walk sign at the stop light, and nothing is happening.”

Voting & Elections 11.7.2022

WIRED: The GOP’s Strategy to Win the Midterms Is to ‘Overwhelm the System’

Jesse Littlewood, the vice president for campaigns with voting rights group Common Cause, told VICE News that while he has seen references to the plan to “overwhelm” the system pick up in recent weeks, he thinks that the idea is still relatively marginal. There are, however, dangers posed by the spread of this message, particularly the idea that people should vote as late in the day as possible. “The danger is that it could cause some of the voters who listen to this idea to miss their chance to vote,” Littlewood said. “If you believe that you need to vote late in the day on Election Day, if you have a family emergency, you could miss your opportunity to vote, so it could disenfranchise individuals who should have the right to participate in the election.”

Voting & Elections 11.7.2022

CNN: Avalanche of early lawsuits could pave way for disputes over Tuesday’s election results

“What we saw in 2020 was this effort to undermine the elections, but, for the most part, it happened after the elections,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at the organization Common Cause, which advocates on democracy issues. “This time what we are seeing is the prep beforehand.” ... Albert, of Common Cause, said that the demands around the country that more Republican workers be hired could be a precursor for attempts after the election to attempt to toss out ballots from election sites in dispute. She said she’s worried that Republicans “are going to basically say, ‘If an election wasn’t run exactly perfect – if we didn’t have an even split of poll workers – then, all of those ballots don’t count,’ which is absolutely ridiculous and nonsensical. An election has never run perfect in the history of the world.”

Voting & Elections 11.7.2022

Washington Post: Election officials fear counting delays will help fuel claims of fraud

“I expect to see what we saw in 2020,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, a nonpartisan voter education and advocacy group. “Election officials will be counting votes, some results will come in late and bad actors will be trying to play political games to undermine people’s confidence in the outcome.”

Voting & Elections 11.4.2022

Gray TV/KMOV (St. Louis): National security agencies concerned about increased threats and violence ahead of midterms

“The attack on Mr. Pelosi is deeply disturbing and part of a larger trend,” said Suzanne Almeida, director of state operations for Common Cause. he attack happened as a rise in threats against lawmakers investigated by the U.S. Capitol Police has doubled since the last midterm cycle, according to the Associated Press. The government watchdog group Common Cause says it is more concerned about this and not other election issues like voter intimidation because most states have systems in place to make sure voters can safely vote. “The Election Protection Coalition in most states has a plan to respond, will have volunteers at targeted polling locations, will be watching online for violent rhetoric, dis and misinformation,” Almeida said.

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