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Online Voter Registration: The Administrative Advantage

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Online Voter Registration: The Administrative Advantage

Most states – 39, plus the District of Columbia – now offer citizens the opportunity to register to vote online. From the state’s perspective, providing this opportunity makes good sense: it keeps voter rolls more accurate and up-to-date, it’s cheaper than the outdated paper-based method, it’s easier for elections officials to administer, and it can be done securely, thereby boosting confidence in our elections systems. There is widespread consensus that online voter registration (OVR) remains a nonpartisan reform without benefit to...
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Civil Rights Groups Push Texas To Expand Absentee Voting In Face of COVID-19

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Civil Rights Groups Push Texas To Expand Absentee Voting In Face of COVID-19

"I'm worried that election workers are simply not going to show up," Gutierrez said, "because the vast majority of people who are working at our poll sites right now in Texas, and everywhere in America for that matter, they tend to be older Americans. They fall into that pool of people who are most at risk during this pandemic. Obviously if election workers don't show up, poll sites don't open. There's nobody to operate the machines and check in voters."

Bill Whitaker: Criticism of McLennan County vote centers neglects many variables, advantages

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Bill Whitaker: Criticism of McLennan County vote centers neglects many variables, advantages

“If a poll site has a long line, and there are shorter lines at a nearby site, that is information our volunteer poll monitors will now be trained to provide to people as they arrive, before the voter gets in line,” Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, said after meeting with Harris County election officials. “We’ll also be running a public awareness campaign leading up to the election encouraging Texans to vote early or, if they are eligible, by mail. We’ll also be encouraging people to fill out sample...

‘Absolutely Unconscionable’: Hourslong Lines to Vote in Texas on Super Tuesday ‘Point to a Bigger Systemic Problem’

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‘Absolutely Unconscionable’: Hourslong Lines to Vote in Texas on Super Tuesday ‘Point to a Bigger Systemic Problem’

"Long lines in any single county can happen for any number of reasons but multi-hour wait times all over the state point to a bigger systemic problem," Common Cause Texas executive director Anthony Gutierrez said in a statement Wednesday. "That problem, to put it bluntly, is that the people in power in state government have no interest in making it easier for Texans to vote."

Young black and Latino voters spent hours waiting to vote in Texas and the state can’t even say how it will fix the problem before November

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Young black and Latino voters spent hours waiting to vote in Texas and the state can’t even say how it will fix the problem before November

According to the study, Dallas County had the most poll location closures, 74. The county has a population that is 41% Latino and 22% percent African American, according to the study. Travis County, Harris County, Brazoria County, and Nueces County — all locations with high levels of people who identify as minorities — rounded out the top of the list of locations where polling locations were cut by officials. It wasn't just Texas. Arizona and Georgia also closed hundreds of polling locations.

"There's a small percentage of...

Why Did It Take So Long to Vote in Texas and California?

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Why Did It Take So Long to Vote in Texas and California?

In some cities, purchases of new voting machines slowed the balloting as voters labored to apply the new technology to the state’s notoriously long ballot. “All over the state, we saw a lot of late openings attributed to technology issues,” said Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of Common Cause Texas, which helped run a hotline that flagged voting problems. “People were used to voting on the same machine for two decades, and there was going to be some training time required.”

Long lines at some voting sites have many Texans waiting in frustration to cast ballots

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Long lines at some voting sites have many Texans waiting in frustration to cast ballots

Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of the watchdog group Common Cause Texas, laid the overarching blame on state policymakers.

"I would frankly chalk up most of the issues we’re seeing (on Election Day) to Texas being a state that doesn’t prioritize voting," he said. "Problems like the Secretary of State website crashing and the widespread voting technology issues could have been easily avoided if the state allocated resources towards election infrastructure.”

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