Voting & Elections

Today, leading experts in the field of election security released a report outlining the serious and unaddressed threat to the integrity of the nation’s elections and democracy posed by the continued use of online voting in 32 states. The report highlights that at the very least nearly 100,000 ballots were reported to have been cast online in the 2016 general election. The report, “Email and Internet Voting: The Overlooked Threat to Election Security,” examines the threats faced by various forms of online voting including blockchain internet voting which is being used in West Virginia this election cycle. Due to the extensive vulnerabilities, the report emphasizes that online voting must be discontinued completely by 2020, and recommends short-term best practices for voters and elections officials in the 2018 election.

“The convenience of transmitting vote totals online does not outweigh the need of the American people to be assured their votes will be accurately transmitted and counted,” said the letter, which was also endorsed by five citizen and digital rights groups, including Common Cause and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“Anyone who registered to vote using this tool needs to go online to verify whether or not you’re registered,” said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas. “Just to be safe, submit another registration by mail. The process doesn’t take long.”

A three-judge federal district court panel in North Carolina today issued its stay order in the partisan gerrymandering case Common Cause v. Rucho, ordering attorneys for the North Carolina Legislators who drew the maps to comply with the conditions requested by the Common Cause plaintiffs. Those conditions require the defendants to file their Jurisdictional Statement with the Supreme Court by October 1, 2018, and to seek no requests for extension of time while their appeal is pending before the Supreme Court.

With Election Day now less than two months away, Common Cause released its 2018 Democracy Scorecard to chart the positions of every Member of Congress on issues vital to the health of our democracy. The reforms in question range from legislation to create a small donor matching fund system and increased disclosure requirements for outside political groups to bills to curb gerrymandering and strengthen the protections in the Voting Rights Act.