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Voting & Elections 10.12.2021

Reuters: Republican candidate for Virginia governor walks fine line on election fraud

"He is clearly trying to have his cake and eat it too," said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, a voting rights watchdog group.

Money & Influence 10.11.2021

Daily Beast: ‘Scam’ Political Groups Try New Tricks—and Rake In Millions

“For 20 years I’ve been looking at the issue through the other end of the telescope, at ‘dark money’ nonprofits trying to hide that they’re influencing politics,” Paul S. Ryan, general counsel for campaign finance watchdog Common Cause, said. “This is the opposite—these PACs appear to be trying to pass themselves off as nonprofits and trying to hide that by spending on the political end. It raises the same concern, though, because in both cases they mislead the government about the use of contributions. And that’s where these scam PACs may be running afoul of the law.” He pointed out that the sudden change in reporting suggests the groups are either mischaracterizing the nature of their spending now, or had been mischaracterizing it for years previously. “It’s illegal to mislead the government,” he said. “And donors should never be lied to.” Ryan also noted that “it also sounds like we very well could be talking about a federal wire fraud statute violation,” citing the fact that every one of the more than two dozen donors contacted by The Daily Beast over the course of the last year said they had been deceived.

Voting & Elections 10.8.2021

USA Today (Op-Ed): Whistleblower confirms what we knew: Facebook blowing it on political disinformation

Since the 2020 election season, the disinformation tracking network for Common Cause –  a grassroots group that promotes democracy – has noted and documented a dangerous trend as social media giants Facebook and Twitter appear to have dropped the ball on their commitments to police election disinformation. This week on Capitol Hill, former Facebook product manager and whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed the extent to which her former employer fails in its commitment to prevent the spread of disinformation about elections, confirming what we’ve been documenting.  Change is needed to protect the millions of voters who will go to the polls on Nov. 2 for gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey. Election disinformation is already creeping into these contests, just as it did in California, where it eventually grew to a flood when the recall voting began. Much of the "new" disinformation is recycled directly from the lies around the 2020 election. The lies spread by former President Donald Trump and his allies on some conservative media outlets about the 2020 elections are only growing in volume.

Voting & Elections 10.8.2021

BuzzFeed News: Republicans Are Laying The Groundwork For Endless Election “Audits” That Go Long Past Trump

Steph Gómez, the associate director of Common Cause Texas, said in an interview she thought the audits would only cause chaos and sow further distrust in elections. “I think the public will be confused. Like, you know, I'm confused and I do this every day,” she said. “Texans have actual issues that they need their state leadership to be focusing on,” she added. “Like, for example, the winter is coming, right, and like, I do not know for certain that I'm not going to be left to freeze in my home again.” During this week’s hearing on the bill, she told senators, “It's embarrassing that state leadership dropped everything to respond to a tweet from a staffer of a former president, neither of which are actual Texas residents.”

Associated Press: Former Cabinet secretary defends auto dealerships from Tesla

Heather Ferguson, executive director of the government accountability group Common Cause New Mexico, said the quick transition by Ortiz from Cabinet secretary to industry spokesman smacks of crony capitalism. “The perception this creates, on the heels of the Tesla deal, is concerning,” Ferguson said. “Each one of these things chips away at the state’s national reputation as to whether businesses can come in and get a fair shake. It hurts our economy.”

Voting & Elections 10.6.2021

Houston Public Media/NPR: Texas legislation would allow partisan actors to request election audits

But Stephanie Gómez, associate director of Common Cause Texas, said the bill would create chaos in the election system. "The process creates confusion and distrust in our democracy, inflames suspicion in the myth of rampant voter fraud, and keeps alive the hopes of those who were so consumed with sowing disbelief in our democracy and chasing conspiracy theories that they literally led an attack on the U.S. Capitol not even a year ago," Gómez said.

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