Voting Rights

With 2024 congressional races in full swing, Common Cause is again tracking the positions of every Member of Congress on issues vital to the health of our democracy. For the fifth cycle in a row, Members of the House and Senate have received letters from Common Cause asking them to co-sponsor and support up to ten democracy reform bills. The letters inform Members that their voting and co-sponsorship record will be published in Common Cause’s “Democracy Scorecard,” which will be distributed to the organization’s 1.5 million members, as well as to state and national media, during the lead-up to Election Day.

The announcement comes three days after Common Cause New York, which advocates for election and ethics reform, and New York Focus, a nonprofit newsroom, called for the state court system to make the transcripts available, noting that public access is limited as New York is one of the only state court systems that charge the media and public for courtroom transcripts. “The longstanding issue of public access to court proceedings has been thrown into sharp relief by the Trump trial,” the organizations said Friday. They added, “During such a hotly contested and deeply polarized election season, and with public trust in democratic institutions at near-historic lows, the courts have an obligation to ensure the public knows the proceedings are fair and equal for everyone-including the former President.” The court’s decision is “a major victory for New Yorkers,” Common Cause said Monday, adding that it should be applied more broadly to other proceedings. “New Yorkers deserve access to the everyday court proceedings that impact them, which is why the state must join the vast majority of other judicial systems across the country and make written transcripts of all trials available to the public, and ultimately permit proceedings to be broadcast,” the organization said.

“Disinformation will remain an issue as long as the strategic gains of engaging in it, promoting it and profiting from it outweigh consequences for spreading it,” Common Cause, the nonpartisan public interest group, wrote in a report published last week that warned of a new wave of disinformation around this year’s vote.

A new report from Common Cause examines the serious and growing threat posed by disinformation in the 2024 election. “Storm Watch: Protecting Voters from Disinformation in the 2024 Election” outlines what we have seen and what we anticipate in the months leading up to November 5, and beyond. The report points to the continuing critical need to combat election disinformation at a time when artificial intelligence (AI) has become more accessible and social media platforms have drastically reduced efforts to control the expanding threat to our democracy.

Today, 44 organizations representing the National Voting in Prison Coalition sent a letter to members of the House of Representatives urging them to co-sponsor the Inclusive Democracy Act (IDA), legislation to end felony disenfranchisement in federal elections for individuals completing their sentence inside and outside of prison and jail. The IDA was introduced earlier this year by Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-7). Currently, the IDA has 23 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives and is awaiting a hearing.

Katya Ehresman, voting rights program manager at Common Cause Texas, noted that some states reward schools that register students. Tennessee acknowledges schools that reach a certain voter registration threshold, and Pennsylvania has a governor’s civic engagement award to celebrate schools that register 85% of eligible students to vote, for example. Common Cause also recommends that the secretary of state’s office mail each school voter registration applications, instead of requiring schools to request them twice a year.