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WIRED: The GOP’s Strategy to Win the Midterms Is to ‘Overwhelm the System’
Jesse Littlewood, the vice president for campaigns with voting rights group Common Cause, told VICE News that while he has seen references to the plan to “overwhelm” the system pick up in recent weeks, he thinks that the idea is still relatively marginal. There are, however, dangers posed by the spread of this message, particularly the idea that people should vote as late in the day as possible. “The danger is that it could cause some of the voters who listen to this idea to miss their chance to vote,” Littlewood said. “If you believe that you need to vote late in the day on Election Day, if you have a family emergency, you could miss your opportunity to vote, so it could disenfranchise individuals who should have the right to participate in the election.”
Found in: Common Cause
CNN: Avalanche of early lawsuits could pave way for disputes over Tuesday’s election results
“What we saw in 2020 was this effort to undermine the elections, but, for the most part, it happened after the elections,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at the organization Common Cause, which advocates on democracy issues. “This time what we are seeing is the prep beforehand.” ... Albert, of Common Cause, said that the demands around the country that more Republican workers be hired could be a precursor for attempts after the election to attempt to toss out ballots from election sites in dispute. She said she’s worried that Republicans “are going to basically say, ‘If an election wasn’t run exactly perfect – if we didn’t have an even split of poll workers – then, all of those ballots don’t count,’ which is absolutely ridiculous and nonsensical. An election has never run perfect in the history of the world.”
Found in: Common Cause
Washington Post: Election officials fear counting delays will help fuel claims of fraud
“I expect to see what we saw in 2020,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, a nonpartisan voter education and advocacy group. “Election officials will be counting votes, some results will come in late and bad actors will be trying to play political games to undermine people’s confidence in the outcome.”
Found in: Common Cause
Gray TV/KMOV (St. Louis): National security agencies concerned about increased threats and violence ahead of midterms
“The attack on Mr. Pelosi is deeply disturbing and part of a larger trend,” said Suzanne Almeida, director of state operations for Common Cause. he attack happened as a rise in threats against lawmakers investigated by the U.S. Capitol Police has doubled since the last midterm cycle, according to the Associated Press. The government watchdog group Common Cause says it is more concerned about this and not other election issues like voter intimidation because most states have systems in place to make sure voters can safely vote. “The Election Protection Coalition in most states has a plan to respond, will have volunteers at targeted polling locations, will be watching online for violent rhetoric, dis and misinformation,” Almeida said.
Found in: Common Cause
NPR (AUDIO): How documentary-style films turn conspiracy theories into a call to action
"What we're seeing now is a trend towards policing other people's voting behavior," said Emma Steiner, a disinformation analyst at the nonpartisan group Common Cause. "It's basically an endless template for taking a picture of someone or a video and saying, 'Oh, actually what they're doing here is criminal and you can trust me on this, and we need to find out who this person is and report them to the authorities.'" ... Common Cause's Steiner said "2,000 Mules" serves a different purpose. It gives people who've already bought into the fiction of election fraud a satisfying story – and a way to participate. "People feel like, I can do my part by watching this movie, keeping an eye out for these ballot mules and attempting to ensure that these people are not voting where I'm voting," she said.
Found in: Common Cause
Newsweek: How MAGA Election Watchers Are Scaring Away Voters
Suzanne Almeida, the director of state operations at nonpartisan watchdog Common Cause, agreed. "It's obviously something we're concerned about. Everyone has the right to vote free from intimidation [...] but this isn't a national wave of people who are armed at ballot boxes," Almeida told Newsweek. "As we are talking about it, if we are thinking there are armed people at drop boxes everywhere, it's going to make it less likely for voters to vote," she said. That is "doing the job of the folks who want to be intimidating for them." ... Almeida said if the ballot drop box a voter wants to use doesn't feel safe, they should head to a different one. She said it is likely too close to Election Day to post a ballot in the mail, but that in many states, people can turn it in at elections offices. "In several states, there's also a process where you can surrender your vote by mail or absentee ballot and then vote in person on Election Day, if that feels safer," she said.
Found in: Common Cause
CNN: How the Biden DOJ’s vows to protect voting rights have played out in practice
“Do I wish they could do more? Yes. Do I know that they are limited by their jurisdiction and their staying in the law? Yes,” said Sylvia Albert, the director of voting and elections at Common Cause, an organization that advocates on democracy issues. “It points to the need to update federal legislation to protect against new types of threats.”
Found in: Common Cause
ABA Journal: Expect litigation over absentee ballots, and expect delays in the vote count, Common Cause warns
“It will be a while before we have results” as a result of the litigation, said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, a watchdog group based in Washington, D.C., in a webinar Tuesday. In Pennsylvania, election deniers are already planning to challenge the results if the election doesn’t go their way, according to Khalif Ali, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania. “Pennsylvania is ground zero for the battle over the freedom to vote,” he said. In Georgia, voters have to include a copy of a government-issued ID with their absentee ballot application. A “live wet signature” is also needed, according to Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia. An electronic signature won’t be accepted.
Found in: Common Cause
Video Links and Quotes from Today’s Media Briefing: 2022 Election Countdown
This morning, a panel of Common Cause policy experts and state leaders briefed the media on the national landscape of voting and elections one week out from Election Day.
Found in: Common Cause
New York Times: Letters, Tweets, TV: How Midterm Disinformation Has Washed Over Pennsylvania
Jill Greene, the state representative for Common Cause, the national good-government organization, said that the many unfounded and untruthful claims posed a challenge for voters. “They don’t really know what to believe,” she said.