News Clips

“Instead of improving election administration with funding for training, resources, and staff — lawmakers are wanting to criminalize voting and inject fear into our elections,” said Katya Ehresman, Common Cause Texas’ voting rights program manager, prior to the vote.

“It’s been helpful and necessary in making sure that our administration of elections is more safe and secure,” said Katya Ehresman, the voting rights program manager at Common Cause Texas. But some Republicans say Texas should no longer be a member of this group. A bill by Houston-area Rep. Jacey Jetton would put an expiration date on the state’s participation in ERIC. Texas would need to create its own alternative cross-check program. Ehresman said other states, such as Kansas and Florida, that have left ERIC have seen worse voter list maintenance and data integrity with their own interstate verification system. “We haven’t seen any defense of these alternatives and how they would be secure, or safe or better for our lists,” Ehresman said. “Texans should not be looking at this bill as an answer to a problem, but instead as a problem in and of itself.” She worries that elections will be less secure if Texas withdraws from ERIC. “It poses a danger to voter fraud, to having less integrity of our voter rolls. And the point is, we know that ERIC is tested,” Ehresman said.

“If we want a democracy that works for everyone, we should be making it harder for money to influence politics and easier for eligible voters to register and cast their ballot, but this bill gets it backwards,” said Amy Keith, program director of Common Cause Florida.

“These bills seem to be wanting to prosecute widespread voter fraud, yet there’s no evidence for these being needed right now other than conjecture or partisan politics,” said Katya Ehresman, the voting rights program manager for Common Cause Texas. She said that often lawmakers like Paxton in Texas use the biannual legislative session to “create political theater” that will help them in their bids for re-election. “It’s largely a problem in search of a solution, especially as less than 18 months ago, both chambers agreed that a felony is not the level of penalty needed for these election issues,” Ehresman said. “We’re really worried that it’s an example of bad faith partisan attempts to subvert our elections and to create additional intimidation around our elections.”

Mia Lewis, associate director of the voting rights organization Common Cause Ohio, questioned why the change was needed. “Our secretary of state has said for years that Ohio runs model elections, setting a standard for the entire country, and yet suddenly there’s a desire to change them,” she said. “It’s perfectly legitimate to ask what’s driving these sudden changes.”

Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs for Common Cause, which has long been critical of Trump’s allegations of election rigging, noted that all the investigations of the former president began well before he started running for president again. “Nobody is above the law, including former presidents, and running for president cannot and must not serve as a shield for wrongful conduct,” Scherb said.