News Clips

The “issues that we’re seeing focused on in the legislature also do not reflect the views and priorities of most North Carolinians,” Ann Webb with Common Cause North Carolina said at a Wednesday news conference. “When you create noncompetitive legislative maps, you lose accountability to the voters.”

Catherine Turcer, executive director for Common Cause Ohio, an organization dedicated to pro-democracy efforts, said that the organization supports the reproductive freedom amendment and that the board’s summary is too partisan. “It’s not fair to the voters of Ohio who go to the polls expecting accurate, neutral information,” Turcer said.

“Voters were waiting two to three hours circling the parking lot, looking for parking spaces or waiting at their car to be serviced by a poll worker,” said Katya Ehresman, a program manager at Common Cause Texas, a voting rights nonprofit. She said that these curbside voting issues were not necessarily the fault of the county but instead an issue of building and resource availability.

Jay Heck, executive director of government watchdog group Common Cause of Wisconsin, said the fact that Republicans put the plan on such a fast track makes supporters of nonpartisan maps suspicious. “A month ago, there was no even inkling that most Republican members of the Legislature were supportive of redistricting reform,” he said. “And so the matter of believability and trust, I think, really comes into play here as we begin this process.”

Jenny Guzman, program director for Common Cause Arizona, says the AIRC can be a lot stronger and more independent. "The way the current Arizona redistricting commission works is in order to appoint commissioners, the first few have to be appointed by the Arizona state party leaders. That can make things a little tricky," she explained. Guzman said that meant fewer "guardrails" to ensure all races were properly represented in the redistricting process. She says this negatively impacted Arizona. "Which is why we lost a state legislative district that empowered Native American voters, so because of that it is really important to ensure that moving forward, the Arizona legislature and also the courts are able to uphold the Voting Rights Act of 1965," she continued. Guzman added if that is not achieved, she supports what she calls "comprehensive voting rights reform," that includes clauses for the independent redistricting commission.

New Mexico doesn’t require any reason for someone to request an absentee ballot. There are only really benefits to that, said Mason Graham, policy director for Common Cause, a nonprofit that works to uphold voter rights. He said it started up with the COVID-19 pandemic. He said absentee ballots allow for more convenience in voting and can help people do more research on candidates. Despite baseless misinformation around mail-in voting, it’s just as secure as in-person voting. Graham said there are extensive integrity and security measures with absentee ballots. For example, voters receive two envelopes with absentee ballots, he said. One is the actual ballot and another is a security envelope inside the ballot, Graham said, and the officials counting the votes verify that the security envelope is closed. Fraudulent ballots also don’t come through because election officials check names, social security numbers and addresses, Graham said. “It’s the exact same level of security that you would get if you were to go to your own voting location,” he said. There is 24-hour monitoring on drop boxes. “Any kind of tampering of ballot drop boxes would immediately be flagged, and election officials will be notified. So there isn’t any issue when it comes to the integrity of the ballot drop boxes,” Graham said.