Beth Rotman of Common Cause said the issue highlights the need for Congress to pass a law requiring its members to park their wealth in blind trusts while they are in office. “Sen. Loeffler, together with other congresspeople, should have all of their stocks in blind trusts so that everyday Americans do not have to guess about whether their representatives are putting their own interests over the interests of their constituents,” said Rotman, the organization’s director of money in politics and ethics.

“Thousands of Georgians were denied the right to vote,” said Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause of Georgia. “Our warnings were not heeded.”

Can the election be postponed? The experts say it cannot, "No laws passed by Congress have delegated these powers to the president, even in an emergency, so Congress is the only entity that has the power to change the date of the election," noted Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause.

“Saints are those who agree with your cause and will fight for it until the bitter end,” McBride observed in her mellifluous Louisiana lilt. “Sinners are those who vehemently oppose your cause and will to the day they die. People in the first two categories will never switch their opinions. It’s the savables, those caught in the middle, we all try to sway because there’s hope for them.”

Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for advocacy group Common Cause, said her organization supports moving forward with next week’s elections, but it is too soon to say what other states should do if the virus continues to spread.

“It’s an ever-changing situation,” Albert said. “I wouldn’t want to opine on what somebody should do in four weeks because we don’t know what four weeks will look like.”

Jesse Littlewood, vice president for campaigns at Common Cause, a nonpartisan nonprofit, said this is the first time the group has monitored misinformation on social media during the primary season, and he had expected to find less of what he terms “cyber suppression.”

“We’re talking dozens to hundreds of pieces of content — not thousands or millions — but even that I’m quite surprised at,” he said.

Littlewood said it’s difficult to tell how much of the bad content comes from bad actors, as...

For its part, the national media must recognize the public needs facts, not spin, not false equivalencies, not Beltway conjectures that ignore the very fragile state of our democracy and the need voters have for truth. And truth is necessary, even for those who refuse the believe it right now. It matters to most of us right now and will matter to everyone eventually if we are to repair our republic and strengthen democracy.

The very high-profile failure of a new app that was supposed to help report Iowa Caucus results has generated some important lessons. Even though the New Hampshire primary was not plagued by the same kinds of gross technical failures, it would be a mistake to just quickly move on and forget the lessons of the first debacle. As the Nevada Caucus approaches, it’s clear some lessons have been learned, but not all.

However, this offensive language and loss of civility in politics goes far beyond Trump. The increased lack of civility in politics and public discourse seems to be more of a symptom of a broken system than a cause. Endless money in politics, hyperpartisan gerrymandering and social media without accountability are largely responsible for the decreasing civility we see today.

“Because Sanders set up Our Revolution and they have raised and spent money in candidate elections, Our Revolution is required to comply with contribution limits, register with the FEC and discloses its donors — but it hasn’t,” said Paul S. Ryan, an attorney for Common Cause. “It’s his establishment of the group that triggers these laws. That means a $5,000 limit, full donor disclosure and no contributions from prohibited sources.”