Voting & Elections

Maine voters gave a vote of confidence on Tuesday to a vote-counting system that guarantees elected officials will have majority - not just plurality - support

Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing sought to answer the question: “How well are we prepared if foreign agents attempt to interfere in our upcoming elections?” Judging by the expert testimony, the answer is “not very.”

Pratt said in her ruling that Common Cause "has a high likelihood of success" on its claim that the law violates some of the requirements of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and "threatens disenfranchisement of eligible voters."

The state's statute assumes that people who don't vote, whatever their reason, have moved and purges them from the voter rolls; in upholding it, the high court "ignores the history of voter suppression" connected with such purges across the country, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a scathing dissent.

“Every American deserves the chance to make their voice heard in our elections without fear of election officials targeting them because of their voting history,” said Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn. “But regardless of how the Court dressed up today’s ruling, the narrow majority just took another hostile step against the right to vote. The laws in most states are more protective of infrequent voters than the one the Court approved in Ohio. Still, many partisan officials are doubtless already studying this morning’s decision as a blueprint for disenfranchising political opponents. And we are prepared to fight back against further erosions to the right to vote.

“We are pleased by the Court’s decision ― it will protect the freedom to vote for thousands of Hoosiers who risked unlawful disenfranchisement from the deeply flawed Crosscheck Program,” Common Cause Chief of Strategy Stephen Spaulding said Friday. “Common Cause is committed to doing everything it can to ensure that every eligible voter can make their voice heard in our democracy.”