Voting Rights

Iowa and New Hampshire set the trends for presidential elections.Let’s hope that their influence does not extend to election laws.

Today, local Common Cause activists delivered a petition to Gov. Terry Branstad at the Capitol urging him to veto a new voter suppression bill passed by the legislature. House File 516 requires voters to show specific forms of government-issued identification at the polls and will roll-back early voting opportunities.

As news breaks about Trump campaign officials embroiled in the FBI Russian investigation, local Common Cause activists began nationwide delivery of petitions to Members of Congress, urging them to support the formation of an independent commission to investigate the Russian government’s attack on the 2016 election. The deliveries of constituent signatures come in the wake of media reports late yesterday revealing that Trump campaign advisor Carter Page was under investigation by the FBI last summer resulting in the granting of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant by a secret court. In visits to district offices from Florida to Alaska and from Maine to Arizona, activists are emphasizing that the partisan atmosphere in Washington is too charged currently for a full and fair investigation by members of Congress.

Overnight, the Georgia Senate voted down House bill 515, a racial gerrymandering proposal that had been dropped at the end of session on short notice in the House and cleared through committee in minutes without public comment. Common Cause Georgia fought the bill from the outset and urged the Senate to vote it down on the grounds that significant numbers of Black voters would be packed into legislative districts with “safe” seats – thereby diluting their voting power to elect candidates of their choice - in order to move new white voters into Republican legislative districts that were carried by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during the presidential election.

Most Americans are familiar with the grainy images of our nation’s Civil Rights struggles. But behind the pictures of Rosa Parks on the bus and lunch counter sit-ins was something more profound than a seat on a bus or at a restaurant.

Common Cause and the Georgia NAACP filed notice of appeal today with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in response to a lower court dismissal of their complaint against Georgia Secretary of State Kemp for violating section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) regarding how voters are purged from the registration rolls.