Voting & Elections

Common Cause and the National Vote At Home Institute recommend that all states, at a minimum, adopt same-day voter registration, offer early voting and eliminate strict photo ID requirements so that voters have sufficient and secure options to cast a ballot on or before Election Day.

Common Cause and the National Vote At Home Institute recommend that all states adopt reforms including same-day voter registration and early voting so that voters have sufficient and secure options to cast a ballot on or before Election Day.

Now that the Trump Administration’s attempted whitewash of their motives for demanding a citizenship question have been exposed, they are scrambling to contrive a new reason. As the documents of GOP gerrymanderer Thomas Hofeller turned over to attorneys in the Common Cause v. Lewis case show, the purpose of the question has always been to advantage "Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites" in redistricting to the detriment of Latinos and other families of color. Combined with recent statements by ICE officials indicating plans to use census information for immigration enforcement, the true motives - anti-Latino, racial animus - driving addition of the citizenship question is increasingly undeniable.

Today’s decision by the government to move forward with printing the 2020 Census forms without the citizenship question is a victory for a fair and accurate 2020 Census count. The Trump administration’s lies about the need for a citizenship question were suspect from the outset but they were laid bare by the facts brought to light in the documents of the GOP’s top mapmaker Thomas Hofeller. Chief Justice Roberts joined by four other justices, rightly stated that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s explanation for adding the question was “contrived.”

Common Cause's lawyers told a three-judge panel they want to use only 35 of those documents in the trial, scheduled to begin July 15. They say the files will bolster their arguments that Republican legislators drew state legislative districts in August 2017 with excessive partisan intent, in violation of the state constitution.