News Clips

Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said she found one provision in the Fleming bill particularly loathsome: the ban on early voting on Sundays. Republicans said the measure is intended to level the playing field between wealthier counties that can afford to provide weekend voting hours and poorer rural counties that can’t. But Dennis, who is Black, said she sees a more nefarious purpose to the proposal, which would upend Souls to the Polls, a long-standing tradition in Black communities to vote right after church on the Sunday before election. “There is such pride in being able to dress up in your Sunday best and cast your ballot with your family and your community,” Dennis said. As a working single mother, Dennis said, she also believes that the proposal would eliminate options for voters juggling complicated schedules.

“We cannot comprehend where they’re coming from,” said Anjenys Gonzalez-Eilert of Florida Common Cause, noting the GOP has long been a supporter and beneficiary of mail voting in the state.

MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart and Mother Jones reporter Ari Berman discuss new proposed voter suppression legislation in Georgia and Common Cause Georgia executive director Aunna Dennis' criticism of the bill as "Jim Crow with a suit and tie."

More than 150 bills proposing new voting restrictions have been introduced in state legislatures since the November election, according to Sylvia Albert, voting and elections director for good-government watchdog Common Cause. “What we saw in this election was record turnout, and Republican legislators have responded by saying, ‘We didn’t actually want you to come vote,’” Albert said. Albert said her group is particularly concerned about new restrictions in states where Republicans control the governorship and both houses of the legislature, such as Georgia, giving Democrats less chance to block them.

“State legislatures that already have very little incentive to make the process public and include people from traditionally marginalized communities are now going to have the additional excuse that they’re trying to meet a tight time frame,” said Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director for Common Cause, a nonpartisan nonprofit. Feng said Common Cause is working with community organizations to prepare ahead of the data release. They’re also warning them to “be on guard for midnight redistricting sessions” once the data comes out, she said.

“Up until recently, redistricting has been obscure, but also obscured – intentionally so,” said Kathay Feng, national redistricting director for the good government group Common Cause. “That curtain is coming down.”