News Clips

"It's pretty common to see both sides of the aisle throw down lawsuits in the weeks leading up to an election," said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause. "What's different about litigation this year is it's directly tied to the 2020 election and the 'big lie,' meant to discourage voters from coming out to cast a ballot, and to lower their confidence in the outcome of our elections."

"No American is above the law, including former presidents and their advisers," Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, said in a statement. "Steve Bannon learned that today through a jail sentence and a fine for defying a subpoena from the January 6th Committee." "It is imperative that Congress have subpoena power with teeth in order to fulfill its oversight and investigatory responsibilities," Scherb added. "If individuals could defy congressional subpoenas with impunity, our system of checks and balances would break down."

“Americans deserve more than lip service and half-measures from the platforms,” said Yosef Getachew, director of Common Cause’s media and democracy program. “These platforms have been weaponized by enemies of democracy, both foreign and domestic.”

"It felt very much like the national effort to vilify and stop absentee voting," said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, a good government advocacy group.

Luttig, undeterred, praised his new legal bedfellows. “I’m honored to be co-counsel representing Common Cause in Moore v. Harper,” he told me. He described Katyal as a “dear friend,” and “one of the very finest Supreme Court advocates and originalist constitutional scholars in the country today.” As for the case, Luttig said, “Common Cause and the other respondents are not only on the side of the Constitution of the United States—they are also on the side of the angels.” 

If someone did attempt to register a dead relative, that application would most likely be rejected, said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, a group that advocates for voting access. If a dead person did make it onto the voter rolls, "the person attempting to impersonate the deceased person would still have to navigate identification requirements, signature verification, and the possibility that the voter registration would be flagged once the appropriate databases did get updated," Gutierrez said. "The odds of this person successfully casting a ballot for their dead relative are extremely low, and the odds of them using this ploy to have any meaningful impact on the outcome of an election are practically zero, whereas their odds of getting themselves into very serious legal trouble and probably spending some time in prison would be extremely high," Gutierrez said.