Voting & Elections

“This year’s rushed process looks likely to cost Georgia taxpayers $580,000 a year, which will be spent chasing conspiracy theories if anything and everything that creates ‘doubt’ about our elections is suddenly up for investigation,” said Aunna Dennis, executive director for Common Cause Georgia, a government accountability organization.

Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, an independent citizens' lobbying group, said that much money would be “transformative” for states holding elections.  ... Albert said states often save the grant money they receive from the federal government for emergencies or for other unexpected reasons.  “Officials don't have confidence that more money will be coming. They don’t feel free to use it in a way that could expand access,” Albert said, praising Biden's call for sustained funding. “That would really allow election officials to create programs that really maximize access ... without worrying that they are spending money to expand a program but then next year have to roll it all back.” Expanding vote-by-mail programs in underserved areas could help people who live in rural areas and on Native lands vote more easily, Albert added.  The proposal could also solidify a Postal Service policy to deliver ballots regardless of whether they have postage on them. Currently, enforcement of that policy varies across the country, she said. “Adding something like this to law would ensure that that policy is actually followed,” she said.

"Texas was already the hardest state to vote in before Republicans passed these laws that made it even harder," said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, in a statement to Salon. "What we're seeing today is a small preview of what we can expect to see at a far wider scale in November unless the federal government finally takes real action to intervene." Gutierrez said the Texas secretary of state's office was repeatedly told about the potential for these problems when the voting-restriction bill was going through committee. He suggested that state officials had "ample opportunity" to address these issues but "instead chose to focus on playing politics [as] implementation was left to local officials who received little to no guidance or communication from our state's chief election officer." He predicted "far bigger problems in November when we have exponentially more people showing up to the polls."

“I think we were all worried about vote-by-mail requirements, but I don’t think anyone expected for it to be quite this much of a catastrophe,” said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of the nonpartisan elections and democracy organization Common Cause Texas, which is is suing state officials over SB 1. Part of the problem, Gutierrez said, is that he is not seeing an earnest effort from the secretary of state to alert voters of the new changes. "The secretary of state seemed to be doing little to nothing to educate Texans about the new requirements until the very last minute," Gutierrez said. "Counties were just given the statute and left to figure it out by themselves.”

“It’s coming from conspiracy theories and lies,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that advocates for expanded voter access. “It’s attempting to lower people’s confidence in elections.” Albert and others said it’s unrealistic to think election officials can count millions of ballots by hand and report results quickly, given that ballots often include dozens of races. The partisan review last summer of the 2 million ballots cast in Maricopa County, Arizona, which included a hand count, took several months and hundreds of people to complete.

“The governor of Florida does not have control over all Florida police departments or the FBI,” Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, told VICE News when DeSantis first announced his plans. “And by proposing this integrity unit, it seems like that’s what he wants: a personal, political goon squad.”