Vote-By-Mail

John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, said the organization is “thrilled that the Supreme Court agreed not to stay the consent decree. Because of this order hundreds of thousands of Rhode Island voters will be able to safely cast their ballots without risking their health.”

“These problems have always existed. They have just been limited to mostly low-income Black and Brown voters,” said Sylvia Albert, Director of Voting and Elections at pro-democracy organization Common Cause. “That population [of people being evicted] has ballooned in the current crisis, and what it exposes is how some parts of our system are not responsive to the needs of the voters.” ... The additional hurdles of a pandemic and an eviction crisis haven’t discouraged people’s interest in voting, Albert said.  “In reaction to the pandemic and the actions of the administration, people feel very strongly one way or another, and it has made them engage more passionately,” she said. “All we need to do now is make sure they have the access.”

“States are already strapped for cash,” Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, said Tuesday. “At a time when the Congress has not appropriated sufficient funds to help election officials run these elections this November, it’s ridiculous to contemplate adding more to their budgets.”

“Today is better than April, but that doesn’t mean it will be smooth sailing in November,” said Jay Heck, state director for Common Cause Wisconsin, a government watchdog group.

“Without proper funding, guidance and preparedness, the problems seen in previous elections are going to be just the tip of the iceberg this November,” Sylvia Albert, voting and elections director with Common Cause, warned lawmakers during a congressional hearing last week.

"New York did not have any infrastructure or an expanded absentee program. So the Board of Elections had to completely revise the entire way in which they were approaching absentee ballots in six weeks," Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, a nonpartisan good government organization, told ABC News.