Voting Rights

The HEROES Act takes critical steps to help secure essential pillars of our democracy undermined by the COVID-19 pandemic while providing a huge boost to address the public health and economic crises. The bill provides important bulwarks to help safeguard our elections, the Census, the U.S. Postal Service, and includes enhanced oversight requirements for the stimulus package that were sorely lacking in CARES Act passed by Congress in late March.

When she retired from Common Cause in 1999, Archibald Cox, the Watergate prosecutor and longtime chairman of Common Cause, called her “a giant in the world of political reform,” a gifted organizer and an inspiring public speaker. “If I had her personality,” Mr. Cox said, “I would rule the world.”

"Every vote is going to matter here, as it's excruciatingly close here, as it always is," says Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, one of the most critical of battleground states this fall. If presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden wins every electoral vote Hillary Clinton did in 2016 – and picks up Pennsylvania and Michigan – he'd still lose by two electoral votes without also capturing Wisconsin. Heck contends that Republicans are trying to suppress the vote to keep battleground Wisconsin in the GOP column this fall. "This is a dog-eat-dog state. The Republicans in this state have shown they will do anything and everything – they will manipulate (the process) and do whatever they need to do to help Trump," Heck says. Democrats believe their voters are more affected, since young, low-income and minority voters tend to move more often, making them more likely to have their residency questioned.

The sight of long lines of voters outside polling places in Wisconsin was both inspiring and heartbreaking, because those voters never should have been there amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The debacle in Wisconsin showed why we need state and local officials to take responsible action now to protect voting rights. We cannot let the November general election play out the way Wisconsin’s election mess did, with voters forced to choose between their health and their right to vote.

The need for meaningful community engagement is not limited to decisions about in-person polling places. Effective policymaking requires this kind of engagement for the entire slate of reforms needed for safe and healthy voting in November, from expanded early-voting options to full language access. No voter should risk their health in order to exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot. But if we do not preserve in-person voting, we will risk the health of our democracy.

“Lawsuits like these are designed to force counties to pull eligible voters off the rolls, and that’s just not the way democracy is supposed to work,” said Suzanne Almeida, interim executive director for Common Cause Pennsylvania.