News Clips

Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of Common Cause Texas, a voting rights organization, is not surprised by the legislation in the Lone Star State, but he is alarmed. “They’re at the forefront of finding new and innovative ways to suppress the vote,” he said of Texas Republicans. “These are blatant attempts to keep people from voting.”

Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, said nonmembers participate in committee hearings "all the time." "This deviation from standard practice to prevent a Black woman from engaging in debate on a bill that would impact Black communities disproportionately is appalling," Gutierrez said. "There is... truly nothing more absurd than Briscoe Cain having to adjourn his committee hearing on his bill that would criminalize procedural mistakes people might make while voting because he made a procedural mistake."

American democracy is resilient. Last November's election "was the most secure in American history," according to the Department of Homeland Security. In the face of immense challenges — threats of foreign interference, rampant disinformation, risks posed by the pandemic — election administrators, organizers, attorneys and advocates worked together to protect the vote. Americans voted in record numbers, casting their ballots safely by mail, drop box and in person. But the work to secure our elections is not over. Recent investigations have revealed vulnerabilities from foreign actors to political campaigns themselves. Email accounts and cell phones of congressional and campaign staff, for example, can be hacked by foreign actors, who have now grown in number and expanded well beyond those from Russia. Other threats are detailed in the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee findings of last year, the final report from special counsel Robert Mueller and a 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment.

“This is Jim Crow in a suit and a tie,” Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, told The Times. Dennis said the data her group has studied show the effects of the proposed restrictions would have the greatest impact upon Black and other minority voters. “This is definitely an attack on the voting freedoms and the gains we’ve made in the last 60 years,” she said.

Despite those warnings, Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel for public policy and government affairs at Common Cause, a government watchdog group, said that Democrats needed to keep every option on the table. “Senate Democrats have the majority and they need to have the ability to govern,” he said. “This idea that it can be costless to filibuster, that you can essentially raise your hands behind closed doors and grind everything to a halt, is unacceptable.”

Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said ID requirements for obtaining absentee ballots, would harm older voters, those who are low-income, and college students because they are all less likely to have driver's licenses or other forms of required identification, such as passports or a state or federal photo identification card. Georgia Republicans "are saying that voting should be for the 1% and ... for the privileged," Dennis told CNN.