Voting & Elections

Susan Lerner, the executive director of the voting rights group Common Cause New York, said that only U.S. citizens can vote in New York state. "Permanent residents and people authorized to work here are documented and approved by the federal government," Lerner said. "They pay state and federal taxes, and pay into Social Security as well. In many cases, they’ve lived in the United States for decades. There is nothing ‘illegal’ about them."

Jay Heck, the executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, said he thinks that Republicans lost recent state Supreme Court elections and a recent gubernatorial election partly because of their voters' aversion to early voting. "There is, I think, a realization on the part of some of them that they had better begin to do the things that progressives and Democrats are doing to turn out the vote if they want to carry the state for Trump or if they want to win a gubernatorial election in the near future," he said. Heck also predicts there will be a lot of "tension" within the party over early and mail voting as November gets closer. "I think there's going to be, if not an outright rupture, at least some pretty serious words back and forth between Republicans who are trying to encourage early voting and then those who just claim that early votes and absentee votes are all fraudulent," he said. "So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out."

Despite endorsing Bank Your Vote, on the trail, Trump has continued to cast doubt on the legitimacy and security of mail voting in particular. Aaron Scherb with Common Cause says this is a huge hurdle for the RNC. He says Republicans across the country have been maligning mail voting since 2020. He says it's going to be hard for them to convince their voters to get over a distrust they created. AARON SCHERB: So getting voters to, like, unlearn or unhear those messages is tough to undo that damage. And so I think that's what this Bank the Vote program is trying to essentially do. It's somewhat analogous to getting a jury to unhear extremely damaging information that's presented against a defendant.

“This follows the general playbook, the election denier playbook of just pre-emptively laying the groundwork for claims of fraud in the event of a loss,” said Emma Steiner, the Information Accountability Project Manager at Common Cause. “It’s sort of future-proofing.”

Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of the watchdog group Common Cause Texas, said Rinaldi’s legal representation of Wilks was “shocking,” especially in light of the ongoing scandals involving Defend Texas Liberty that Rinaldi has been involved in. “We all know money equals power in Texas politics and billionaires like the Wilks use their wealth liberally to bend public policy to their liking all the time,” he said. “But it's still pretty shocking.”

“After the 2024 election, the General Assembly should seriously consider whether the process for selecting board members needs to be changed. This should be a wake-up call,” Morgan Drayton, policy and engagement manager at the nonpartisan government watchdog group Common Cause Maryland, said in a statement. “It is sickening to think that Ayala was making decisions about our elections after allegedly participating in the attempted insurrection. His disrespect for the voices of Maryland voters and his disregard for the peaceful transfer of power stands in direct contrast to the duties of the Board of Elections.”