Voting Rights

“Bob Phillips is what’s good about politics,” Dennis Wicker told The News & Observer in an interview. Wicker, a Democrat, served as lieutenant governor from 1993 to 2000 and considered Phillips a trusted advisor, then and now. “He understands public service starts with fair elections and open elections,” Wicker said. “He’s a true believer that great public service is born from a strong and fair democracy.”

Critics say the partisan nature of Will’s case is clear. “Let’s be honest, Esenberg wouldn’t be pursuing this if it was going to decrease the number of conservative Republican voters as opposed to Democratic and progressive voters,” said Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin. ... “They’ll wait in line and then they’ll find out that they’re not registered and then they’ll be told they have to register,” Heck said. “You’ll have people who just say ‘to hell with it’”.

"To Majority Leader McConnell, we ask: why are you afraid of all Americans having their full right to vote?" Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, said in a statement.

Our democracy can only be fulfilled when all eligible Americans have their votes counted and voices heard, and we commend the House of Representatives for passing the Voting Rights Advancement Act (HR 4) today to help stop voter suppression. Since the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision in Shelby County v. Holder gutted the Voting Rights Act, Americans have been systematically stripped of their ability to vote in numbers not seen since the Jim Crow era. Instead of poll taxes and literacy tests, modern day vote suppressors use poll closures, voter purges, and other devious tactics to silence Americans. The Voting Rights Advancement Act will help curb those abuses and hold states and municipalities accountable when they abuse the system to determine who is able to cast a ballot and who is not. To Majority Leader McConnell, we ask: why are you afraid of all Americans having their full right to vote?”

With a floor vote expected Friday, Common Cause and it’s 1.2 million members are strongly urging every member of the U.S. House of Representatives to vote “yes” on the Voting Rights Advancement Act (HR 4). In a letter to House Members, Common Cause emphasized the critical importance of updating the protections of the Voting Rights Act after the landmark legislation was gutted by a highly controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder.

“The most serious curtailment to voting rights and turnout in Wisconsin is due to the extreme and restrictive photo voter ID law,” said Jay Heck, director of Common Cause, a non-partisan government accountability group in the state.