News Clips

"They're making it very difficult for people to access services that should be a right that people have," said Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia. "Trying to put a veil over it doesn't help anything."

"We saw vote-by-mail applications and ballots rejected at unprecedented rates, poll sites opening late or not opening at all due to election worker shortages, and widespread technology issues," said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas. Calling for federal action, Gutierrez said it won't get any easier for Texas or other states: "These issues we’re seeing today will be far bigger problems in November when we have exponentially more people showing up to the polls."

"The elimination of state autonomy is inconsistent with the historical practice and the intent of the Election Clause and invites the risk that federal courts will wrongly interpret state law -- a significant risk given the difficulty federal courts have in mastering 50 different States' laws," Allison Riggs, a lawyer for Common Cause, argued in court papers. She said to accept the Republicans' argument "that partisan gerrymandering claims are immune from state constitutional scrutiny by state courts would require this Court to overrule a century of precedent." "It would lead to an unprecedented upheaval of current election law and foreclose any legal relief for voters from extreme legislation, which state courts already found to be undemocratic," Riggs said in an interview.

Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, describes provisions like the Texas one and accompanying voting restrictions as “death by a thousand cuts.” “When you put so many restrictions on the election that a certain percentage of people can’t vote or don’t have votes counted then the election is no longer a reflection of the will of the people,” Albert says.

Voters should prepare in advance if they want to cast an absentee ballot this year, said Aunna Dennis, executive director for Common Cause Georgia, a government accountability organization. “Start the process early to be as prepared as possible so you don’t have to face hurdles that may come,” Dennis said. “We don’t know just yet what the impact is going to be until we actually have the primary.”

Allison Riggs, a lawyer representing Common Cause in the litigation, said GOP legislators were now “outrageously” attempting to insert the U.S. Supreme Court into state laws less than three years after the justices ruled state courts could use their own laws to curb partisan gerrymandering. “We are confident this specious attempt to undermine our judiciary will be rejected,” Riggs said in a news release. The U.S. Supreme Court told Common Cause and other litigants to respond to the stay request by Wednesday.