Press Release

Today, in advance of National Voter Registration Day on September 24th, Common Cause called on state lottery commissioners throughout the country to add voter registration information to the back of lottery tickets. In a letter to commissioners in the 45 states with lotteries, the nonpartisan government watchdog emphasized how this common-sense step could reach thousands of potential voters.

A panel of three judges in the Wake County Superior Court ruled unanimously today in Common Cause v. Lewis that the NC General Assembly violated the North Carolina Constitution when it gerrymandered the state’s legislative districts for partisan gain. The court gave the legislature two weeks to draw new NC House and NC Senate districts, applying strict nonpartisan criteria and in full public view.

Today, Common Cause, Verified Voting, and The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law released a report on Rhode Island’s pilot program to identify the most effective methods to implement the risk-limiting audits (RLA) required by the state for the 2020 election. The three organizations were part of a working group that helped the state design and run the pilots earlier this year.

Today, Common Cause urged President Donald Trump and the Senate to quickly nominate and confirm new commissioners to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to avert a crisis that would leave the agency largely powerless to enforce campaign finance laws without a quorum. The resignation of Vice Chairman Matthew S. Petersen, effective at the end of the month, will leave the FEC with only three commissioners, one short of the minimum required for the FEC to act and well short of the six required by statute. With the 2020 election cycle well underway, the letter urges the president to treat the situation as an emergency and fill the vacancies expediently.  

Today, Common Cause released a new report on the impact of denying voting rights to people with past felony convictions and what must be done to strengthen their voting rights. “Zero Disenfranchisement: The Movement to Restore Voting Rights” documents the racist history of felony disenfranchisement laws, the new movement to repeal them, and provides several personal stories of individuals affected by these voter suppression efforts.

Just days before the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) annual meeting in Austin, Common Cause and the Center for Media and Democracy released a new report uncovering the recent influence of the secretive special interest lobbying group in the Texas legislature.