News Clips

"Anytime you add a step to the process ... you lose voters who are making a good-faith effort to cast their ballot," said Katya Ehresman, the grassroots organizer for Common Cause Texas, a nonpartisan group that advocates for government reform.

“This is the culmination of a years long effort to maintain the status quo,” John Marion, executive director of the government watchdog group Common Cause Rhode Island, told The Boston Globe. “They did not hide the fact that the goal was to let the incumbents draw the maps as they pleased.”

Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for the government watchdog group Common Cause, said the case shows how states can fail to educate people about voting rights and voter reenfranchisement. She also called the sentence excessive and said Moses’ race is likely a factor. “It is well understood and well known that the criminal justice system is harsher on Black and brown defendants than it is on white defendants, and there’s plenty of research to show that,” Albert said.

"Unfortunately, we had a Republican legislature so determined to make it harder to vote that there just was not any thought given to implementation," said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas. "At every level, this is just a mess." Common Cause Texas, like other local groups, has set up a hotline and is calling on voters to educate themselves on the new law. Gutierrez said advocates are also suggesting voters include both ID numbers on their application to ensure they aren't rejected.

The fight for voting rights goes on, even though every Senate Republican, joined by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), tried to shut it down on January 19. They refused to adjust a Senate rule best known for obstructing civil rights legislation. The filibuster rule – requiring 60 votes to advance most legislation if any senator objects – has been modified or waived more than 160 times in recent decades. Just in December, an exception was granted for legislation dealing with the debt ceiling, with the support of Manchin and Sinema and some Republicans. Yet somehow they decided voting rights were not important enough to warrant any adjustments to the rule.

Aunna Dennis, executive director for Common Cause Georgia, told the Augusta Chronicle in December that the county was "trying to do this undercover precinct consolidation" and several voting groups would begin a canvassing drive to stop the plan. "I think there are bad actors who are wanting to pilot precinct consolidations and takeovers of elections boards in smaller counties," she said.