News Clips

Julia Vaughn, executive director of transparency and voting advocacy group Common Cause Indiana, said that 30-day timeframe is unfair. She worries the bill could catch people who become lawful citizens and voters whose names are still on the temporary list. “The failsafe has to move like clockwork right?” she said. “And in the real world, clockwork doesn’t always happen.”

“Conducting business behind closed doors is unacceptable,” Common Cause New York executive director Susan Lerner said. “Open your doors to the people. The people who live in congressional districts deserve a say in who will represent them.”

Also on Monday, Public Citizen and Common Cause submitted petitions urging state election officials in Alabama, Louisiana, and Wisconsin to regulate deepfakes in political campaign communications. "AI deepfakes represent a very clear and present danger to our democracy," said Ishan Mehta, director of Common Cause's media and democracy program. "The opportunity for deceiving and misleading voters has never been so acute as it is today with the vast improvements in fake computer-generated images and voices." "And ultimately if voters later realize that they have been duped by false and misleading—yet very convincing—campaign ads, they are going to lose even more confidence in the value of elections," Mehta warned.

Jonathan Mehta Stein, executive director of California Common Cause, said while no one was hurt, the attempt to poison or kill an election worker is despicable. "It's to destabilize our elections and to scare the public servants who run them," Mehta Stein pointed out. "And to make all of us more fearful of participating in our democracy." Mehta Stein blamed the rise in threats to election workers on the litany of false conspiracy theories claiming the 2020 election was rigged. "We have to find a way to reach people who think elections are being stolen in America," Mehta Stein stressed. "And verify for them that not only are their votes being counted, but that the United States and specifically California run some of the most secure elections in the world."

Of the 22 states that have some version of same-day registration, John Marion, executive director of Common Cause RI, says: "Some have no residency deadline, others have lengthy deadlines. All have residency requirements." The maximum allowed under legal precedent is 30 days." This year's version of the legislation has not yet been introduced, but Marion confirms his group's intent: If the repeal wins voter approval in November, "we would then advocate for an enabling statute that would allow for same-day voter registration." Marion is among those arguing: "For too long, Rhode Island has made it too difficult for too many of our residents to vote. That is because Rhode Island has the longest voter registration deadline in the country. "We're in the same company as states that include Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and that's not company we want to keep. "We want to be less like Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi and more like Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, all of which offer same-day registration," said Marion.

While the Voters Choice Act was never intended to be a panacea for all voting challenges facing California, one thing is very clear: The law is a reform worth revisiting and reinvesting in, and still holds promise for expanding electoral participation across the state and across many voting groups.