Voting & Elections

“Allowing voters to vote [absentee] on Election Day and having their ballots count is just another way to increase the number of people who can be involved in the process, really, at any time, but particularly in the uncertainty of this year,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at the nonpartisan nonprofit Common Cause.

Karen Hobart Flynn, president of Common Cause, said: “You cannot test election integrity rules by breaking them, any more than you can rob a bank to make sure your money is safe.”

"President Trump’s repeated requests to his followers to commit felonies are felony crimes themselves because he is inciting the commission of those crimes," said Karen Hobert Flynn, president of the election watchdog organization Common Cause. "You cannot test election integrity rules by breaking them any more than you can rob a bank to make sure your money is safe."

Americans expect and deserve more from their President than statements urging his supporters to commit a felony by voting for him twice in the coming election. President Trump’s repeated requests to his followers to commit felonies are felony crimes themselves because he is inciting the commission of those crimes. And if the last several years have taught us anything, it is that some Trump followers will do virtually anything Trump recommends including taking unproven, unapproved, and potentially dangerous medications he has recommended for COVID-19.

Acknowledging problems in the Massachusetts election, Pamela Wilmot, the executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, nevertheless attributed the high primary turnout to the state’s shift toward voting by mail. “Compared to the problems we’ve seen in other states, it really was a relatively smaller percentage of the voters that faced these issues,” she said, adding that Massachusetts had benefited from a decline in coronavirus infection rates. Partly as a result, she said, “we did not experience a poll worker shortage.”

Sylvia Albert, the director of voting and elections at Common Cause, a watchdog group, said the main issue big companies need to tackle is not getting their employees to vote but to work the polls. "The reality is that the government has been unable to really secure poll workers on a national scale," Albert said. "People just don't think about it. They go to vote and there's the same person there that was there the last time they went to vote. But when you tell people, you being there can actually ensure that people in your community are able to vote a ballot that counts, that's an amazing gift," she added. While there has been an increasing push to make Election Day a national holiday, Albert points out that it is not the end-all-be-all for a democracy. While it may be one step towards ending vote suppression, hourly workers would still need to clock in on holidays. It will take a collective effort from citizens, companies and the government to encourage voters to shape the country's future and Albert thinks that companies are a crucial player. "Corporate America has a gigantic stage and a lot of power. They could have a really positive effect if they step up," she said.