COVID-19

"Every vote is going to matter here, as it's excruciatingly close here, as it always is," says Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, one of the most critical of battleground states this fall. If presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden wins every electoral vote Hillary Clinton did in 2016 – and picks up Pennsylvania and Michigan – he'd still lose by two electoral votes without also capturing Wisconsin. Heck contends that Republicans are trying to suppress the vote to keep battleground Wisconsin in the GOP column this fall. "This is a dog-eat-dog state. The Republicans in this state have shown they will do anything and everything – they will manipulate (the process) and do whatever they need to do to help Trump," Heck says. Democrats believe their voters are more affected, since young, low-income and minority voters tend to move more often, making them more likely to have their residency questioned.

Today, Common Cause called on Congress to prioritize funding for key elements of our democracy in the next COVID-19 emergency supplemental appropriations bill (“CARES 2.0”). The letter urges every Member of Congress to designate sufficient funding in the stimulus package to secure essential pillars of our democracy threatened by the pandemic and to ensure proper safeguards are put into place to oversee government disbursement of trillions of dollars in stimulus funds. The elements highlighted in the letter include critical efforts to safeguard our elections, the Census, the U.S. Postal Service, access to broadband internet service, as well as local journalism and to fully staff and prioritize the CARES Act Congressional Oversight Commission.

“Local media is a critical source of news and information for communities, holds our government accountable, and plays an important role in our civic engagement,” argues former member of the Federal Communications Commission Michael Copps, who now counsels Common Cause on media issues. “But the health crisis our nation faces combined with the long-term decline in local news has left many communities without adequate sources of trustworthy news on the pandemic and has created a void in civic information. Congress must act now to ensure local news is adequately funded in order to meet the information needs of communities.”

The sight of long lines of voters outside polling places in Wisconsin was both inspiring and heartbreaking, because those voters never should have been there amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The debacle in Wisconsin showed why we need state and local officials to take responsible action now to protect voting rights. We cannot let the November general election play out the way Wisconsin’s election mess did, with voters forced to choose between their health and their right to vote.

The need for meaningful community engagement is not limited to decisions about in-person polling places. Effective policymaking requires this kind of engagement for the entire slate of reforms needed for safe and healthy voting in November, from expanded early-voting options to full language access. No voter should risk their health in order to exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot. But if we do not preserve in-person voting, we will risk the health of our democracy.

Several new public polls make clear that the vast majority of Americans support innovative and commonsense reforms to make voting more accessible and secure.