Voting & Elections

Our democracy can only be fulfilled when all eligible Americans have their votes counted and voices heard, and we commend the House of Representatives for passing the Voting Rights Advancement Act (HR 4) today to help stop voter suppression. Since the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision in Shelby County v. Holder gutted the Voting Rights Act, Americans have been systematically stripped of their ability to vote in numbers not seen since the Jim Crow era. Instead of poll taxes and literacy tests, modern day vote suppressors use poll closures, voter purges, and other devious tactics to silence Americans. The Voting Rights Advancement Act will help curb those abuses and hold states and municipalities accountable when they abuse the system to determine who is able to cast a ballot and who is not. To Majority Leader McConnell, we ask: why are you afraid of all Americans having their full right to vote?”

With a floor vote expected Friday, Common Cause and it’s 1.2 million members are strongly urging every member of the U.S. House of Representatives to vote “yes” on the Voting Rights Advancement Act (HR 4). In a letter to House Members, Common Cause emphasized the critical importance of updating the protections of the Voting Rights Act after the landmark legislation was gutted by a highly controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder.

Why is this better? Consider how a presidential primary works in the current system. We’re constantly gaming out our vote, trying to figure out who can win a general election, or who’s got the best shot in Iowa, as opposed to voting for whom we want because we like what they stand for. How many more times do we have to read thinkpieces about whether a woman or a person of color is electable? With ranked-choice voting, you can vote with your heart and your head — without worrying about sabotaging either.

“The most serious curtailment to voting rights and turnout in Wisconsin is due to the extreme and restrictive photo voter ID law,” said Jay Heck, director of Common Cause, a non-partisan government accountability group in the state.

With increased public scrutiny of the security, accessibility, fairness, and overall integrity of voting and elections as we approach 2020, Sylvia Albert joins Common Cause as its National Director of Voting & Elections. Albert brings more than a decade of professional experience in public interest law and public policy campaigns expanding ballot access, reducing barriers to participation, and combating voter intimidation among historically disenfranchised communities. She has also done extensive work on fair housing issues serving as a program analyst and an advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity in the Obama Administration.

The nonprofit Common Cause found at least 18 Twitter users that had tweeted some variant of the idea that while one party votes on Tuesday, the other votes on Wednesday, and the group flagged them to Twitter. As of this writing, eight had been removed.