News Clips

“We are seeing the kind of incidents that are likely to happen in every election be blown up to mean there is something fundamentally wrong with Pennsylvania election administration and we can’t trust the Department of State or the counties to give us an accurate count,” said Suzanne Almeida with Common Cause Pennsylvania, a nonpartisan organization that advocates to expand access to voting. “There are any number of reasons why that’s not true.”

Now, in states where ballot rejection data is publicly available, local election offices and non-partisan voter rights groups are enlisting volunteers to help with the curing process. According to Izzy Bronstein, a grassroots organizer with watchdog organization Common Cause who helps run its Election Protection volunteer coalition, volunteers can reach out to voters to let them know that their ballot might need curing, and then walk them through that process. ... Bronstein said volunteering for ballot cure phonebanking typically starts with  a 15-minute individualized training session, and then you’ll be ready to hop on a Zoom call with fellow volunteers, where everyone can pop in and ask questions as needed. She also said the dialer software connecting volunteers with voters who need their ballots cured should be familiar to anyone who’s phonebanked previously. “The difference is the script,” Bronstein said. “The process is just a little bit more complicated than a regular ‘Get Out the Vote!’ script.”

Having her pay for an ad campaign “in my opinion would be an illegally large in-kind contribution to the Trump campaign,” said Paul S. Ryan, the vice president for policy and litigation at the good-government group Common Cause. Even if she were just to appear in an ad, without funding it, there would be a value to Ms. Manigault Newman’s time that would almost certainly exceed the $2,800 federal contribution limit, Mr. Ryan said.

“It is even more incumbent on us, particularly wearing our nonpartisan hat, to make sure that the election runs smoothly, because we know that folks are going to be looking carefully at the results in Pennsylvania,” said Suzanne Almeida of Common Cause PA, which is heading up the effort in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. “It's about making sure that every voter gets their ballot counted and their voice heard in our democracy,” said Izzy Bronstein, campaign manager with the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization Common Cause. “And that's really something we can all come together on.”

“We are disappointed that the court did not grant the relief we requested,” said Aunna Dennis, executive director for Common Cause Georgia . “It’s clear that the demand for these ballots will be extremely high in this election and will far exceed the statutory minimum of 10%.”

Aunna Dennis, executive director of the voter advocacy organization Common Cause Georgia, said what happened Monday was a "math problem." "A lot of people voted on the first day," and "Covid-19 precautions means each voter takes longer," Dennis said, adding that there were also reports of machine problems and a shortage of paper ballots that could be used as backups. "That needs to change," she said.