Voting Rights

Voting rights groups say the atmosphere in Georgia has been increasingly tense in recent months as they’ve worked to get out the vote. Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, has been wary of what she describes as “angry mobs” at the Capitol, explaining that “there has been a hostile presence with the Stop the Steal rallies.” As a Black woman, she feels particularly unsafe around the area which she is used to visiting as she does her election protection work, she adds.

Today, the Common Cause Education Fund is pleased to announce it is a recipient of Lumina Foundation’s racial equity funding program to expand the Student Action Alliance. The Student Action Alliance is a program for students of color that is led by a team of Black millennials. The program focuses on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and students of color at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). The two-year $200,000 grant, which is part of the Lumina Foundation’s $15 million effort to help eradicate systematic racism, will allow the Common Cause Education Fund to increase its staff capacity and expand our program to additional HBCUs and to other Minority Serving Institutions.

“It seems like there’s a coordinated effort to limit access to the ballot, and it’s not something we need after so many gains” in voting options last year, said Aunna Dennis, executive director for Common Cause Georgia, a government accountability organization. “We’re definitely going to be on the defensive.”

Americans expect and deserve a strong democracy, but we can never take the health of our democratic system for granted. The For the People Act (H.R. 1) brings to bear transformative reforms that will help safeguard our democracy which has been increasingly under attack by enemies both foreign and domestic. It has become clear that we must shore up the defenses of our democracy by expanding access to the franchise, empowering the voices of everyday Americans in our elections, and upholding strong ethical standards in government. H.R. 1 contains reforms that address all three pillars. Many of the solutions in H.R. 1 have worked successfully at the state and local level for years.

“There’s no question there is grounds for an investigation at the federal level and at the state level,” said Stephen Spaulding, special counsel for public policy at the nonpartisan nonprofit Common Cause. “The question is we’ve got this one tape, but how many other people received this call?” Spaulding said. “How many state legislatures received this call? What other secretaries of states, election officials received this call? Who else in the White House was involved?”

“Republican lawmakers in a variety of states are using the president's lies as justification for making voting harder and suppressing the vote,” Sylvia Albert, the director of voting and elections at the nonpartisan voting rights group Common Cause, told ABC News. “Obviously we saw record turnout everywhere and part of that was because access to the ballot was expanded. And obviously nothing is perfect. We would want improvements and improvements should be made, with consultation with election officials and election security experts and advocates in the community, but that's not what we're seeing. What we're seeing is legislatures adopting the president's lies about there being problems with the election,” Albert added, referring to unsubstantiated claims about voting machines changing votes, fraudulent signature matching processes and other baseless claims promoted by the president.