“A lot of people have questions about this new law,” said Amy Keith, program director for the good government group Common Cause Florida.

“The ‘big lie’ has become embedded in our political discourse, and it’s become a talking point for election-deniers to preemptively declare that the midterm elections are going to be stolen or filled with voter fraud,” said Yosef Getachew, a media and democracy program director at the liberal-leaning government watchdog Common Cause. “What we’ve seen is that Facebook and Twitter aren’t really doing the best job or any job in terms of removing and combating disinformation that’s around the ‘big lie'.”

Before the State Board of Election’s decision Monday, the good government group Common Cause Maryland sent a letter to Hogan asking him to issue another executive order for this year’s election.

“Failure to take action will allow time and space for election deniers to propagate lies and conspiracy theories about our elections,” the letter read, referencing concerns some had before the primary that candidates whose standings in the tallies changed during the mail-in ballot counting could make claims of election fraud.

Yosef Getachew, Media & Democracy program director at the watchdog group Common Cause, criticized that content-neutral approach, citing Newsmax's pattern of sharing false claims — not just from guests, but employees — about fraud in the 2020 election, which a judge recently concluded the network knew "were probably false" at the time they aired.

"Newsmax has amplified and aired content about the Big Lie, mischaracterized the January 6th insurrection, and is continuing to fuel election disinformation, which is damaging our...

“One America News Network will be left without a major carrier to spread its often harmful and dangerous disinformation and baseless conspiracy theories,” said Yosef Getachew, the media and democracy program director at Common Cause, a government watchdog group that urged Verizon to drop OAN. “This is a welcome change but long overdue.

“No company should profit from spreading content that endangers our democracy.”

Common Cause and other civil rights groups have pressured carriers to drop OAN.

Yosef Getachew, media and democracy program director at Common Cause, helped author a letter from more than 120 civil society groups to seven major social media companies, noting that "disinformation related to the 2020 election has not gone away but has continued to proliferate." The letter’s demands included consistent enforcement of civic integrity policies during both election and non-election cycles and the prioritization of enforcement around combatting what they call the big lie that says Trump won the 2020 election.

“We have very few rules when it comes to campaign finance in Texas, and the few that we do have are not enforced, clearly,” said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, a government watchdog group. “What’s the point of even having the rules?”

“Today’s decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court means that voters will be able to rely on the provisions of the VOTES Act in the upcoming elections. This is a big win for voting rights in Massachusetts,” said Geoff Foster, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts.

Yosef Getachew, a director at the nonprofit public advocacy organization Common Cause, whose group studied 2020 election misinformation on social media, said the companies have not responded.

“The Big Lie is front and center in the midterms with so many candidates using it to pre-emptively declare that the 2022 election will be stolen,” he said, pointing to recent tweets from politicians in Michigan and Arizona who falsely said that dead people cast votes for Democrats. “Now is not the time to stop enforcing against...

Mario Jimenez, a former election official in the state who now works as the campaign director for the New Mexico chapter of Common Cause, a watchdog group, noted New Mexico law makes it a criminal offense to knowingly violate election laws.

“They were instructed by their county attorney on the things they can and cannot do … despite being notified by their own legal expert and this very experienced county clerk, they continue to wilfully break the law and not serve their community or their constituents.”