Voting & Elections

Today, Common Cause called on Congress to hold emergency hearings to examine why Wisconsin voters were forced to risk their lives by standing in lines at polling places on April 7th during the COVID-19 pandemic when public gatherings were prohibited in the state. The letter to the Senate Rules and Administration Committee and the Committee on House Administration also urged the committees to explore how other states are adjusting their elections to ensure that all voters can be counted during the current pandemic in both the primaries and the general election. The letter also emphasizes the need for Congress to provide additional election funding to states in its next stimulus bill to help ensure every American is able to cast their ballot in a safe and secure manner.

Jay Heck, the Wisconsin director of Common Cause, a voting-rights advocacy group, said voters face a difficult choice between wanting to vote and protecting their health. “Wisconsin’s absentee ballot rules are no doubt disenfranchising voters,” Heck said. Heck said the governor and Legislature have seven months to correct the problem to “avoid this kind of chaos” for the November general election.

"Wisconsin is the only state in the nation that has failed to step up and respond responsibly and safely to the current national health pandemic emergency," Jay Heck, director of voting rights group Common Cause in Wisconsin, said in a statement. 

Jay Heck, the executive director of Common Cause of Wisconsin, said he is “terrified” by the idea of the state holding the election on Tuesday given the mounting health risks. For the first time in nearly 25 years in his role, he is not encouraging people to vote in person, which “flies in the face of everything I believe in.” “It’s insanity. It’s just insanity,” an emotional Heck said midday Monday, before the governor’s order, describing the ways people could contract coronavirus at a polling place. “It makes me cry thinking about what is going to happen tomorrow. It really does.”

Jay Heck, director of Common Cause Wisconsin, a voting-rights group, likened the spring election to a cosmic calamity. "The upcoming election is hurtling toward the state of Wisconsin like some unstoppable meteor," said Heck. "It is terrifying, because nobody knows what's going to happen."