Aunna Dennis, executive director of the voter advocacy organization Common Cause Georgia, said what happened Monday was a "math problem."

"A lot of people voted on the first day," and "Covid-19 precautions means each voter takes longer," Dennis said, adding that there were also reports of machine problems and a shortage of paper ballots that could be used as backups. "That needs to change," she said.

Despite a consensus among experts that extending the safe harbor deadlines would help states avoid a constitutional crisis, Aaron Scherb, the legislative director at the nonpartisan ethics group Common Cause, said any change could hold “unintended consequences.”

“We think, given the president’s previous remarks … it could be misconstrued by the president as Democrats trying to ‘rig’ the election,” he said.

Scherb argued Congress could wait until after the election and then consider extending the...

Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of Common Cause Texas, said that "many" of the voters affected by the rule change rely on public transportation.

“Many of the Texans who qualify to vote absentee have disabilities and are elderly, and they rely on public transportation,” Gutierrez said in a statement. “With only one drop-off site per county, these voters would face challenges in travel that might make it impossible for them to vote. The drop-off site limit will also make the one site in each country prone to lines...

“Many of the Texans who qualify to vote absentee have disabilities and are elderly, and they rely on public transportation,” Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas said in a statement. “With only one drop-off site per county, these voters would face challenges in travel that might make it impossible for them to vote. The drop-off site limit will also make the one site in each country prone to lines and crowds, endangering voters' health.”

“Something is seriously wrong with New York State’s democracy when less than two months before this November’s historic vote, local boards of election are so broke they are pleading for funding from a charity,” five groups, including the state chapters of Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, wrote in a letter to the governor in mid-September, asking for $50 million in emergency election funds.

"It's illegal in every state to harass or intimidate a voter away from voting," said Suzanne Almeida, interim executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania. "There are specific rules in the election code about not standing in the way of a voter and their franchise, and so poll watchers can't do that either."

“In Virginia, the safe zone around the polling location is only 40 feet, but that safe zone is for campaigning and trying to change a person’s vote,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, a voting rights group. “Outside of that, in general, there are laws against intimidation. So I would say that even if they have a right to campaign, which they absolutely do, they do not have a right to interfere with someone’s right to vote or to intimidate them.”

“To me, this went beyond...

"The House of Representatives passed nearly 10 democracy reform bills, often with bipartisan support, this session, but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked debate and markups on all of these bills and refused to allow a vote," Common Cause's director of legislative affairs, Aaron Scherb, said.

The 2020 Democracy Scorecard, one of the group's initiatives, provides data on every current member of the House of Representatives and Senate, including their votes and co-sponsorships of democracy reform bills.

Scherb...

Citing all the disarray in Georgia’s elections this year, public interest groups wonder whether it was an accident. “Secretary Raffensperger has been looking for reasons to cast doubt on Georgia’s mail-in ballot system for months,” said Aunna Dennis, the executive director of Common Cause Georgia. “He would have served us all better if he had invested that time and energy into preventing the problems that occurred in June.”

Solution: Congress should pass a new coronavirus relief bill that includes $3.6 billion for states to administer elections. With increased resources, states can begin to recruit, hire more workers at a higher wage and organize mass trainings. Local governments should try to find new kinds of poll workers: colleges could give their students credit, employers could provide paid time off and local governments could assign employees to the polls. Companies could help, too. Which sports team will award season tickets to a poll worker? Which...