News Clips

The key to having any interstate program function properly is having as many states participate as possible, said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, a nonpartisan group dedicated to upholding American democracy. "If Texas is going to lead the charge to have a bunch of red states create their own system, it’s hard to see how that can possibly be successful with such limited participation," he said.

The lifting of bans on former president Trump by Twitter and Facebook hammers home the point that there is little interest from social media platforms in combating election disinformation. The platforms are scaling back content moderation at a time when consistent enforcement of civic integrity policies can be most impactful. The next year is pivotal, not just in state legislatures but for people's attitudes toward democracy and the information they receive about it.

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.

“Bad actors could easily abuse this data,” wrote Alex Gulotta, Arizona state director of All Voting is Local Action, and Jenny Guzman, program director of Common Cause Arizona, in a mid-March Arizona Republic commentary. “This is not a far-fetched reality.”

We are being silenced in Florida, with dangerous legislation making its way through the state Legislature that could stifle the ability of everyday Floridians to speak freely. House Bill 991 and the companion bill Senate Bill 1220 would dramatically change our state’s defamation laws and allow for monetary judgments when elected officials or others think they’ve been slighted on social media or in critical press reports. By doing away with the long-held standard of proving actual malice or ill intent in a defamation case, Florida would be inviting frivolous lawsuits to proliferate and arming elected officials and others with the ability to silence outspoken critics.

“Voters who know the truth about our elections have faith in them,” said Liz Iacobucci, election security program manager with the voter advocacy group Common Cause. “But the people who have been led into disbelief — those people can be led into other things, like Jan. 6.”