Voting & Elections

America has lost one of its greatest heroes. Rep. John Lewis spent his life fighting injustice, and this nation owes him an enormous debt of gratitude. Through decades of tireless and selfless work, Rep. Lewis left the United States a far better and more just nation than the one he was born into.

Just to be sure, though, we asked a couple of campaign law experts how much Mr. West’s filings meant. “Very little,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause. Candidates are not required to register with the F.E.C. unless they have raised or spent more than $5,000, but “there is nothing that prohibits someone who hasn’t raised or spent that amount of money from filing,” Mr. Ryan said. “That’s why you see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of not serious candidates, and to some extent completely fake or joke candidates.” “Filing these two forms with the Federal Election Commission are really the two easiest parts of running for president,” Mr. Ryan said. “Every state has its own rules for what it takes to have your name on the ballot, their own deadlines, their own requirements. That’s the hard part — and then actually running a campaign.”

‘Just trust us’ is no longer a viable or safe option for Twitter and other social media companies. Americans expect and deserve safeguards that protect their personal data and ensure companies take meaningful steps to mitigate harms when experiencing data breaches, particularly ones that pose a serious threat to public safety and the integrity of our elections.  The large-scale hack of high profile Twitter accounts reveals how security vulnerabilities on social media platforms can have serious threats  to our society. Yesterday’s Bitcoin scam had many victims, but it also raised the terrifying specter of the damage that might be done by a similar hack aimed at stirring social upheaval, insurrection, or upending the 2020 election. The episode again laid bare the insufficient defenses and oversight of the social media companies that can hold such sway in the public square. It also revealed the startling lack of transparency from the social media giants. No clear explanation of the hack or even its scope has been offered. And many of us who have been hacked have yet to be notified by Twitter.

“The big issue we’ve seen is poll workers saying, ‘We don’t want to work this election because the governor isn’t requiring masks at polling locations,’” said Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of Common Cause Texas, another voting rights group.

“If things don’t change drastically, we’re going to have huge problems in November,” Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of the good-government group Common Cause Texas.

Heather Ferguson, executive director of Common Cause New Mexico, said the problems seen in the primary are reflective of a long history of racism. “Democracy has been failing in Indigenous communities for such a long time, and this is yet another example of how they have been disenfranchised and because of how all of these other systems are not in place, it continues to cause trauma and harm to these communities,” she said.