Vote-By-Mail

Common Cause Rhode Island and the League of Women Voters of Rhode Island sued the state to strip signature requirements for good. “It was waived in 2020 and for fall elections, and sure enough, we set a record for number of mail ballots,” said John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island. “Part of that is that it was the height of the pandemic. But we think we’re going to see a permanent shift in an increase of voting by mail.”

“In the past, some cities have had multiple locations and tried to engage voters where they’re at, while other towns have smaller staff and differing capacity,” said Geoff Foster, executive director at Common Cause Massachusetts. “Because these things vary across the state, voters need to check in with their local city clerks.” Left out of the VOTES Act was something advocates say could remove a major barrier for lower-income people in Massachusetts: same-day voter registration. “Lower-income voters and voters of color are oftentimes in areas with higher rates of renters, and folks might live in the same municipality but move from one precinct to another without knowing they have to update that when they move,” Foster said. These voters may arrive to cast their ballots on Election Day, only to be turned away. “They might find they’re inactive voters or they went to the wrong location,” Foster said. “We consider same-day registration unfinished business.”

Voters make mistakes. Oftentimes ballots don't get returned by the deadline required by the state. But Sylvia Albert, the director of voting and elections at Common Cause, says many voters also get tripped by requirements on a mail ballot. Depending on where you live, your state might require you to provide a signature that matches one on file, voter ID information such as a driver's license, or a date. She says all these "little checks" are opportunities for human error. Plus, Albert says, voting at home means you are on your own, for the most part. "You don't have an election worker there who can answer any questions you have or direct you to anyone else who can help," she says. "You are just alone on your kitchen table." Sometimes, Albert says, voters completely miss the field to provide their ID information or their signature. Other times, election officials have a hard time checking ID numbers or signatures against what's in their system. ... Common Cause's Albert says it also depends what your state allows local officials to do when they are trying to contact voters. "Some of that is set in state law," Albert says, "and some legislatures are not really interested in providing more leeway to election officials to reach out to those voters."

"Where we take issue is when any candidate utilizes information they know is false, data they know is suspect at best, to try and move a particular policy agenda that they know is in no way, shape or form doing anything to improve access to the ballot," said Annastacia Belladonna-Carrera, executive director of Common Cause Minnesota, a nonpartisan voting rights group that typically doesn't weigh in on specific races. In August, Common Cause Minnesota issued a statement rebuking Crockett for comments she made during a radio interview railing against proposed election law changes and telling listeners, "This is our 09/11." Crockett told the Star Tribune that she meant the proposed changes should be a "wake-up call" for Republicans and then claimed to be victim of a "hit piece."

John M. Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, said the state will need a few election cycles to gauge what the new permanent voting pattern will be, but this year is bound to see an increased percentage of voters casting ballots by mail and early voting as compared to pre-pandemic levels. “In 2020, tens of thousands of people tried voting early or by mail for the first time and many of them liked it,” Marion said. “And that is what we have seen in other states: As you make voting more convenient and provide other forms of voting, people take advantage of the opportunity.”

“I don’t want to give them more power than they actually have to undermine us and our faith in the election process,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for expanded voter access. “We have a huge infrastructure with thousands of election officials and checks and balance. In places where there are bad intentions to harm voters, we are all working to ensure those don’t happen.”