Voting Rights

Since the 2020 election season, the disinformation tracking network for Common Cause –  a grassroots group that promotes democracy – has noted and documented a dangerous trend as social media giants Facebook and Twitter appear to have dropped the ball on their commitments to police election disinformation. This week on Capitol Hill, former Facebook product manager and whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed the extent to which her former employer fails in its commitment to prevent the spread of disinformation about elections, confirming what we’ve been documenting.  Change is needed to protect the millions of voters who will go to the polls on Nov. 2 for gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey. Election disinformation is already creeping into these contests, just as it did in California, where it eventually grew to a flood when the recall voting began. Much of the "new" disinformation is recycled directly from the lies around the 2020 election. The lies spread by former President Donald Trump and his allies on some conservative media outlets about the 2020 elections are only growing in volume.

Steph Gómez, the associate director of Common Cause Texas, said in an interview she thought the audits would only cause chaos and sow further distrust in elections. “I think the public will be confused. Like, you know, I'm confused and I do this every day,” she said. “Texans have actual issues that they need their state leadership to be focusing on,” she added. “Like, for example, the winter is coming, right, and like, I do not know for certain that I'm not going to be left to freeze in my home again.” During this week’s hearing on the bill, she told senators, “It's embarrassing that state leadership dropped everything to respond to a tweet from a staffer of a former president, neither of which are actual Texas residents.”

But Stephanie Gómez, associate director of Common Cause Texas, said the bill would create chaos in the election system. "The process creates confusion and distrust in our democracy, inflames suspicion in the myth of rampant voter fraud, and keeps alive the hopes of those who were so consumed with sowing disbelief in our democracy and chasing conspiracy theories that they literally led an attack on the U.S. Capitol not even a year ago," Gómez said.

Every American deserves the freedom to vote regardless of our color, background or zip code, but that freedom is under siege in many states. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, introduced in the Senate today, will protect the freedom of every American to cast a ballot and have a say in decisions that impact our lives—from combatting the pandemic to creating jobs to making health care affordable.

"This decision to inject partisan politics into our elections process will only sow doubts in our democracy, distract and divide us, and stick taxpayers with these giant bills," said Stephanie Gómez, associate director of Common Cause Texas. "Texans deserve better than to have our ballots serve as fuel for an election conspiracy," she said.

“With 95 percent of Texas population growth in the last decade coming from communities of color, our new congressional districts clearly should have been created to provide them the ability to elect their candidates of choice,” said Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of the good government group Common Cause Texas. “That did not happen because these mapmakers prioritized the interests of their own political party over those of Black and brown Texans.”