Voting & Elections

Americans should have options to vote in a secure and accessible way. One possibility many have raised is making Election Day a national federal holiday. While giving Americans a day devoted to voting is a good idea, it must also be coupled with other election reforms to make sure no one is left out of the political process.

Facebook has demanded that New York University (NYU) shut down a research project that has been collecting data about the company’s ad-targeting practices. The NYU Ad Observatory, a project of the university’s engineering school, has recruited more than 6,500 volunteers - including many Common Cause members - to use a specially designed browser extension to collect data about the ads Facebook shows them. Facebook has informed NYU that the project violates provisions in its terms of service that prohibit bulk data collection from its site. The social media behemoth has threatened further enforcement action if NYU does not comply. In response, Common Cause has launched a petition drive urging the social media giant to let the program continue and instead shut down the rampant disinformation on the platform.

In New Mexico, Amber Carillo is helping members of the state's various tribes get information on the best way to register ahead of the Oct. 31 deadline. A member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe with relatives in the Acoma Pueblo, Carillo is particularly distressed whenever she gets word of another elder who has died from complications of COVID-19. “These are people that carry our cultural wisdom and language,” says Carillo, a Native American voting rights organizer with the activist group Common Cause New Mexico. “For us, when they die, it’s like the Library of Congress burning down.”

Common Cause Pennsylvania, a nonpartisan watchdog group and Election Protection partner, is hearing from voters who want reassurance they’re doing everything right. “We are seeing such incredible voter anxiety in Pennsylvania that is really a result of a lot of the new laws,’’ said Suzanne Almeida, the group's interim executive director. Almeida pointed to various election changes, including vote-by-mail available to eligible voters for the first time in some states, satellite election offices and deadline extensions. “All of which is in the midst of probably the most fraught election – at least of my lifetime,’’ she said.

The groups are also planning for Election Day itself. The nonpartisan grassroots group Common Cause is appointing “election protection volunteers,” which it describes as “voters’ first line of defense against restrictive election laws, coronavirus-related voting disruptions, or anything else that could silence their voices.” Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, told BuzzFeed News that the volunteers will monitor the polls from outside voting stations while others watch for online disinformation and field calls to a hotline set up to take reports of voting problems, which could be anything from a lack of wheelchair access to illegal campaigning inside polling stations to explicit voter intimidation. In 2016 and 2018, the group had about 6,500 volunteers; this year, the number went up exponentially to more than 36,000. Albert said the thousands of unarmed volunteers outside polling stations will be trained to handle situations in which they face intimidation or violence, although she believes that anything of the sort is unlikely to happen.

Jesse Littlewood, vice president of campaigns at watchdog group Common Cause, said emails and videos meant to make the elections system look insecure or suspicious follow a pattern of attempts to “shake people’s faith in the integrity of our elections.” The problem is not exclusively foreign either, he added. “We have seen some domestic bad actors use disinformation to create mistrust and it has had measurable effects,” Littlewood said. “These examples try to prey on and stoke people’s fear, and that has been amplified.”