COVID-19

“The big issue we’ve seen is poll workers saying, ‘We don’t want to work this election because the governor isn’t requiring masks at polling locations,’” said Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of Common Cause Texas, another voting rights group.

“If things don’t change drastically, we’re going to have huge problems in November,” Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of the good-government group Common Cause Texas.

Across the country, moves to reopen the economy before containing the virus offered a lesson in “how the political system accommodates the needs of business,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at the watchdog group Common Cause.

“Indiana is the only state that has tied the voters’ hands in this way,” Julia Vaughn, policy director of Common Cause Indiana, said in a statement. “Our aim is to disrupt what could become a dangerous trend across the country.”

Today, Common Cause Indiana filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a state law that strips voters of their right to petition state courts to extend polling-place hours. Common Cause Indiana v. Lawson was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. Common Cause Indiana is being represented in the case by Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, the law firm of Eimer Stahl LLP and the national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

“It certainly looks bad and smells bad,” said Aaron Scherb, a spokesperson for Common Cause, a watchdog group whose education arm was also approved for a loan through the program. Members of Congress should not be allowed to vote on bills in which they can personally benefit, he said.