News Clips

"This is the third year in a row Florida's lawmakers have changed our voting rules, attacked community-based groups who support voters, and implemented unnecessary and confusing barriers for Floridians looking to participate in our democracy, while making no investment in voter education at all," Common Cause Florida program director Amy Keith said in a statement. "This makes clear their real aim: to suppress our voting rights and silence the voices of eligible Florida voters who want a more inclusive future for our state," Keith added. "We need a democracy that works for everyone, and our Florida leaders should be targeting the wealthy special interests that dominate our politics, not everyday Floridians who deserve to exercise their right to vote without barriers."

"I think it's the worst decision the North Carolina Supreme Court perhaps has ever made," Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, told reporters.

However, Neal Katyal, who argued against the map on behalf of Common Cause in December, said he believes the high court still has jurisdiction. “It’s a pretty dangerous thing to allow state supreme courts to essentially test drive their opinion and go through oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court and then pull it back,” Katyal, a partner at Hogan Lovells, said in an interview for Bloomberg’s “Cases and Controversies” podcast.

“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.

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.

“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.