Voting & Elections

While the pro-DeSantis ad accurately shares Trump’s words from the Truth Social post, Common Cause disinformation analyst Emma Steiner said she still found the use of AI-generated content in a political campaign "concerning." "In an information environment where voters are faced with a deluge of false and misleading information, AI content has the potential to muddy the waters even more," she said. "My major concern is that there are, as yet, very few ‘rules of the road’ for the use of AI in political campaigns at a particularly fraught time for democracy — and when social media platforms are backing off of enforcement of their own civic integrity policies."

Common Cause interim co-president Marilyn Carpinteyro on Tuesday sent a letter to all members of Congress on behalf of her group and its more than 1.5 million members and supporters "in strong support of the Freedom to Vote Act and in strong opposition to the 'American Confidence in Elections' (ACE) Act," which was introduced by House Republicans earlier this month. "The ACE Act is a giant step backward and would silence the voices of everyday Americans by putting up barriers to voting and by allowing millions of dollars more in secret money to infiltrate our political system," Carpinteyro wrote. "To strengthen free and fair elections and help get big, secret money out of politics, Congress must instead pass the Freedom to Vote Act."

Today, Common Cause is urging every member of the United States Senate and House of Representatives to support the Freedom to Vote Act (S. 1/H.R.11), a transformational pro-voter, anti-corruption bill, and to oppose the House’s anti-voter “American Confidence in Elections” (ACE) Act. In a letter to the full Senate and House, Common Cause emphasized that the Freedom to Vote Act will strengthen Americans’ freedom to make their voices heard at the polls, end partisan gerrymandering, combat dangerous election sabotage efforts, and help to curb the undue influence of secret money in our elections.

“How do they get anything done? Are the important decisions going to be deadlocked? The consequences of that, as we are learning, could be devastating,” said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina. Early voting polling sites and schedules must be approved by the unanimous support of a county election board under current law, Phillips said. If a member of the county board objects, the state board must decide. If it cannot, he said, current law says the only early voting site would be the county board of elections office. Such a decision could have a devastating impact on turnout in large counties that might normally have more than a dozen early voting locations, he said, and leave voters in more rural, less populous counties forced to travel.

“There’s a clear contrast here between the two visions for what each party views for going forward with American democracy,” said Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, a nonpartisan nonprofit. “One party wants to make it harder for Americans to vote and wants there to be more big money in politics, and the other party wants to make sure that all eligible Americans can vote and wants to make sure big money does not dominate politics.”

Officials from Common Cause California, a good government advocacy group that is co-sponsoring AB 1248 and AB 764, said they’re excited to see the “groundswell of support” for independent redistricting this year. “There are some technical amendments to do to make sure the bills don’t conflict with each other,” said Laurel Brodzinsky, legislative director for the organization. “But definitely on a policy level, it’s really exciting to see.”