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“Today’s passage of the bipartisan SAFE Act in the House is a large critically important step toward safeguarding our elections. It is now up to the Senate to pass strong election security legislation. Our election systems have been breached by a hostile foreign power. Those attacks continue to this day and they will not stop during the 2020 elections, so we must be ready."

Common Cause is urging every member of the U.S. House of Representatives to vote “yes” on the Securing America’s Federal Elections (SAFE) Act (HR 2722) when it goes to a floor vote later this week. A Monday letter to Members emphasized that the critical legislation will help ensure that states and localities get the necessary resources and take key steps to make our election infrastructure resilient in the face of the ongoing attacks by hostile nation state actors.

Today, Common Cause called for immediate oversight hearings on reports that the Trump Administration is shifting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) staff from its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to the border with Mexico. In letters to the House Committee on Homeland Security and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Common Cause urged Congress to ensure that DHS and all government agencies continue to devote necessary staff and resources to protect our election infrastructure in the wake of well-documented and continuing attacks on our election infrastructure by Russia and other hostile foreign nations.

Today, Common Cause Indiana and several registered voters in Saint Joseph County – Mary Frederick, John Justin Collier, William Marks Jr., and Minnie Lee Clark – filed suit against Secretary of State Connie Lawson and members of the St. Joseph County Election Board for rejecting outright their absentee ballots with purported signature mismatches in violation of their due process and equal protection rights under the federal constitution.

Floridians expect and deserve to know that state and federal officials are taking proper precautions to safeguard the integrity of election systems. As a perennial election battleground state, we know that we are and will remain a target. New revelations that not one, but two Florida county election systems were breached by Russian hackers during the 2016 election cycle raise serious concerns that must be addressed by state officials and the U.S. Congress.

Governor Brian Kemp today signed into law HB 392, which has a provision requiring Georgia’s secretary of state to take steps to shore up the security of the state’s voter registration database. The move comes just weeks after Gov. Kemp signed HB 316, which included new protections for Georgia voters who are required to cast provisional ballots. These bills were passed in direct response to a lawsuit brought on behalf of Common Cause Georgia by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, along with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, & Garrison LLP, and Sugarman LLP.