Abuse of Power

To analyze whether a map is Voting Rights Act-compliant, one needs to look at past election results, often at the precinct level, and not every state offers such information in a single database, according to Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director for the voting rights group Common Cause. "You would have to go to each county, and each county would give it to you in a slightly different format, and you have to figure out how that all could be put together," Feng said

“Rather than making it easier for Texans to vote for elected leaders who will prioritize our health and safety above their political ambitions, Governor Abbott has just attempted to silence voters from being heard in the next election,” said Stephanie Gomez, associate director of Common Cause Texas, one of the organizations suing over the new law.

Originally appearing on Democracy Labs, this article is reproduced here with our gratitude to its author, Deepak Puri.

“We’ve had a very functional system of election administration,” said Common Cause Ohio Executive Director Catherine Turcer, adding, “It is genuinely surprising that after a successful election where more Ohio voters participated than ever before, that any legislator would think about making it harder to vote.” ... Turcer, of Common Cause Ohio, said voters’ confidence would grow if they understood the election rules already in place. “The distrust of election officials and election administration has run really deep, and we need to do a good job of educating people about how elections work and what kind of security measures we have,” she said. “We shouldn’t assume that wrong things are being done. We should all go into it asking good questions but waiting to understand how it actually works.”

"It appears that they would like to take over the county board of elections," Aunna Dennis, the executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said in an interview with Salon, calling the move part of a "coordinated strategy" that represents Republican "opposition to, basically, democracy." Dennis also warned that "whatever happens in Fulton is going to domino across the state" and that if this approach is successful for Republicans, other states with GOP-majority legislatures could soon follow. "This would become a domino effect across many states," she said. "If it happens in Georgia, people should definitely be looking out to see if major counties, and definitely progressive counties or cities who have large voting populations, will be targets as well."

“He’s running a con,” said Paul S. Ryan, a campaign-finance expert at the watchdog group Common Cause. “Talking about political expenses — but, in reality, raising money for self-enrichment.”