Press Release

Today, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals returned a ruling that empowers more Ohioans to make their voices heard at the ballot box. The ruling addresses the voters who were aggressively purged from the voter rolls, granting them the right to vote provisionally and have their ballots counted. This ruling will give more Ohioans an opportunity to help chart the course for our state in the future. With so much at stake in this year’s election, I’m heartened knowing that more eligible voters will have the option to take part in our democracy.

Today, Common Cause, joined by current and former elected and appointed Republican officials, filed an amici brief in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in support of the New York State’s challenge to the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. The brief filed in State of New York v. United States Department of Commerce, emphasizes that the United States Constitution, and subsequently the Fourteenth Amendment, guarantees the right of every resident of the United States to be represented by a member of Congress. The Commerce Department’s addition of the citizenship question, the brief argues, will cause undercounts in areas with large non-citizen populations resulting in a Congress that will not be equally apportioned by population as the Founders intended.

Today, Common Cause released a new report on more than two dozen ballot initiatives and state constitutional amendments to strengthen, and in some cases undercut, democracy that will be decided by voters at the state and local level in November. “Democracy on the Ballot” traces the growing momentum behind citizen-driven pro-democracy reforms in recent years and examines initiatives and amendments on ballots in the 2018 general election from Florida to California and from North Dakota to New Mexico and urges support or opposition to each.

Today, leading experts in the field of election security released a report outlining the serious and unaddressed threat to the integrity of the nation’s elections and democracy posed by the continued use of online voting in 32 states. The report highlights that at the very least nearly 100,000 ballots were reported to have been cast online in the 2016 general election. The report, “Email and Internet Voting: The Overlooked Threat to Election Security,” examines the threats faced by various forms of online voting including blockchain internet voting which is being used in West Virginia this election cycle. Due to the extensive vulnerabilities, the report emphasizes that online voting must be discontinued completely by 2020, and recommends short-term best practices for voters and elections officials in the 2018 election.

Initial reports about the brief FBI investigation of sexual assault allegations reek of a whitewash as the Senate scrambles to fill the Supreme Court seat before facing voters in November. Combined with the abbreviated and inadequate document release of Brett Kavanaugh’s professional career and his appearance at last week’s hearing, many questions have been raised about Judge Kavanaugh’s fitness to serve as a Justice and they must be answered.