Voting & Elections

"It's like a domino effect," said Sara Henderson, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, about the voting issues in Georgia. "We expect lots of problems at the polling places because there has been a complete lack of voter education."

The good government group Common Cause is monitoring voting concerns around the country. Its president, Karen Hobert Flynn, said most of the problems reported to date are fairly typical. "We are waiting to see what else will come out," she said.

"I think we're a seeing a groundswell of public interest in government, including how campaigns are funded, even how we draw our (legislative and congressional district) lines," says Elena Nunez, director of state operations and ballot measure strategies for Common Cause and one of the authors of the report. "I think that some of it is a reaction to the hyper-polarization" in the country now, Nunez adds. "People are paying attention to not just the game, but the rules of the game. We are seeing a shift, and some great opportunities to increase participation and give some voice to the people," Nunez says. "People are coming together to say there's a better way to do this."

The result of purging voter roles is many inactive voters, who had not moved, being removed from voter rolls. This approach is not an efficient way to update voter rolls because it results in a large number of eligible voters being purged from the voter rolls. Fortunately, the federal appeals court later ruled that the Ohio boards of elections must count provisional ballots in the 2018 midterm elections for certain individuals who were previously purged from the voter rolls.

Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, previously worked for a good-government advocacy group in California, giving her a clear picture of the states' contrasting policies. "I've worked in the two extreme examples of how much dysfunction there can be," she said. "In California, there's too much direct democracy and in New York there's none. Neither is the right solution. I came out of California feeling its initiatives were out of control — and now I'm nostalgic for them," recalling instances when California lawmakers would tackle difficult issues to defuse a potential initiative campaign.

Today, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals returned a ruling that empowers more Ohioans to make their voices heard at the ballot box. The ruling addresses the voters who were aggressively purged from the voter rolls, granting them the right to vote provisionally and have their ballots counted. This ruling will give more Ohioans an opportunity to help chart the course for our state in the future. With so much at stake in this year’s election, I’m heartened knowing that more eligible voters will have the option to take part in our democracy.