Suzanne Almeida, the interim director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, said adding more secure ballot drop boxes would be an easy and cheap way for counties and local election officials to increase accessibility.

“Many of these reforms that we're looking at are systemic and require and require significant additional funding,” Almeida said. “It's a culture shift in Pennsylvania, as this is the first election we've ever voted by mail by these numbers.

“Folks need to understand that it's better to get it right...

“I am trying to see today as an opportunity to show the cracks in the system that we can fix before November,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for voting rights group Common Cause.

Albert said there is concern that in the November election, people who request absentee ballots will not receive them, and there will be fewer polling places as counties consolidate them in response to the pandemic.

“There needs to be a rational level of consolidation that ensures that communities who...

“We are seeing and feeling the effects of the police response to the protests over the last few days,” said Suzanne Almeida, interim executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania. She cited the city convention center, where 18 polling locations had been condensed into one, as having a significant presence of National Guard troops, “which is obviously a deterrent to voters.”

Suzanne Almeida, the interim executive director for Common Cause Pennsylvania, a voting rights organization, told ABC that for officials in Pennsylvania, "this was never going to be an easy election."

"Pennsylvania in 2020 was always going to be crazy. It's a swing state in the presidential election year. And then on top of that, in 2019 we passed historic voting reform that gave us vote-by-mail for the first time, and changed the voter registration deadline closer to election day," Almeida said.

However, Common Cause Pennsylvania is claiming the lawsuit is a “political ploy” designed “to remove specific voters from the voter rolls.”

“Our job with Common Cause is to make sure this doesn't turn into a democracy crisis with people who should be able to show up and vote on Election Day being removed,” Suzanne Almedia, the interim executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, told Fox News. “This is about the process that an eligible voter would go through if they're purged from the rolls mistakenly."

Not so, an elections expert said. “This is a totally separate matter,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, a nonprofit group that advocates for eased ballot access. “You’re comparing apples to oranges.”

Albert noted that Congress determines the timing of federal elections and that the president does not have the power to change that.

Catherine Turcer, the executive director of Common Cause Ohio, said that for vote-by-mail to be successful in Ohio, should that be the default in November, the process needs to be streamlined. That means eliminating the additional back-and-forth of submitting an absentee ballot application.

“Threatening to prosecute Texans who simply want to vote without endangering themselves, their families or their neighbors is just cruel,” said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause, a nonpartisan government watchdog group. “Everyone who works on voting rights or elections in Texas, including the secretary of state, has said this is a piece of law that is not clear, hence the litigation, and the judge made what we believe is the right call today.”

“As this becomes more partisan, each political party is going to go to its corner,” said Sylvia Albert, the director of voting and elections for Common Cause, a leading voting rights advocate. “But there’s a way to find the middle.

“We have to get the ball moving now,” she added, “or Wisconsin is going to be what November looks like everywhere.”

Some communities, such as those on Native American tribal lands, aren't as well-served by the U.S. postal system, and mail-in ballots should include pre-paid postage so citizens don't have to pay for the right to cast a ballot, says Karen Hobert-Flynn, president of Common Cause. But she's for any idea that "makes sure there's fair and safe voting for all."

"Even as we are worried about this public health threat, we need to remember that it can't distract us from the ways we can fight it," Hobert-Flynn says. "That means we have...