News Clips

“We are confident we’ll see record turnout here by the end of the election night,” said Quentin Turner, who runs the voter protection operation in Michigan for Common Cause, a nonpartisan group. “We are a little above 50 percent of our 2016 total in early votes alone. Many folks in Michigan want to vote in person; it’s an important tradition here.”

“Make sure, regardless what happens with litigation, that your vote is counted,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, which called for Barrett to recuse herself from any potential election litigation. “To me, it seems a clear voter-suppression tactic and an effort to invalidate ballots” that a party does not think are for them. “I would hope the court would see that as an obvious power grab, but the reality is, we don’t know what the court would do,” Albert said.

Jay Heck, director of the voter-rights group Common Cause in Wisconsin, said fear of the virus is a huge issue heading into Election Day because coronavirus cases are spiking to an average of 4,500 new diagnoses a day in the state. President Trump’s campaigning there has drawn large crowds recently. “Trump and Pence have been coming continually, and their rallies are all not requiring people to wear masks,” he said. “[People might say,] Hey, if it’s okay to go see the president and vice president and not wear a mask, why should I have to wear one if I’m going to vote? That’s caused a lot of concern.”

Pennsylvania voters have requested a record number of more than 3 million absentee ballots this year. The state chapter of Common Cause, a voting-rights advocacy group, has assigned 2,000 volunteers to voting sites in 11 counties that the group believes could have election-day problems. This army of poll watchers can funnel complaints to lawyers working with Common Cause, which has been involved in pre-election lawsuits over voting laws this year.

Since so many people are voting a new way this year, “some of this stuff doesn’t sound so crazy anymore,” says Jesse Littlewood, vice president of campaigns at the nonpartisan nonprofit Common Cause. “And we have unfortunately seen some bad actors weaponize that and say, ‘because of the coronavirus or because of social distancing, certain people need to vote after the election has concluded.’” Littlewood recommends consulting the nonpartisan National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS)’s website canivote.org for up-to-date information on your state’s rules. Littlewood cites a growing trend in mis- and disinformation calling into question the security of vote-by-mail systems. Despite false claims by President Donald Trump and others that vote-by-mail is prone to fraud, evidence shows that vote-by-mail is safe and secure, he stresses.

The civic engagement group Common Cause Oregon, meanwhile, has launched a massive texting campaign in the eight most affected counties, sending out voting information and the number to their voting hotline, and trying to catch anybody who may have fallen through the cracks. Executive Director Kate Titus says they’ve reached some 300,000 people. “One of the reasons we decided to reach out by text is because we recognize that the people we reach could have a lot going on,” she says. In fact, all the experts that Bloomberg CityLab spoke to emphasize that for many displaced residents who’ve temporarily or permanently lost their homes, voting may be the last thing on their minds.