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Every American deserves the freedom to vote regardless of our color, background or zip code, but that freedom is under siege in many states. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, introduced in the Senate today, will protect the freedom of every American to cast a ballot and have a say in decisions that impact our lives—from combatting the pandemic to creating jobs to making health care affordable.

The Cyber Ninjas report, itself, showed that Joe Biden won the presidential election in Maricopa County; that determination came after a chaotic hand-count of more than 2 million paper ballots, and closely paralleled official election results. But the central result was cloaked in other allegations intended to create new doubts about the 2020 election. 

No American is above the law, not even the President. But the abuses we witnessed during Donald Trump’s presidency made it very clear that Congress must strengthen the guardrails on the vast powers of our nation’s highest office. The former administration’s actions exposed and exploited a gulf between well-established norms of presidential power and the laws that govern. The Protecting Our Democracy Act will provide greater checks and balances to the powers of the presidency while creating new mechanisms for transparency and accountability.

Today, the U.S. Census Bureau will release population data from the 2020 Census in an easy-to-use format for Americans who want to advocate for fair maps in this year’s redistricting cycle. The new format of the data will be made available to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico and will be key to increasing participation in the ongoing redistricting efforts.

The negotiated framework in the Freedom to Vote Act represents a huge step forward for the people. It shows the Senate is working to find a path forward to get this landmark legislation signed into law. This legislation will strengthen our freedom to vote so that we all, regardless of political party, background, or where we live, have an equal say in the future for our family and community. The legislation leads to fair maps for Congressional districts and ending gerrymandering forever. It also makes important steps to curtail secret money in elections and encourage small-dollar donors to reduce the influence of big money. Every voter should call both of their US Senators now to say, “get the job done, protect the freedom to vote for the people.”

A new investigation by Common Cause’s disinformation analysts has revealed that social media giants Facebook and Twitter seem to have backed away from enforcement of their own policies and enforcement practices when it comes to combatting election-related disinformation. The white paper, “Trending in the Wrong Direction: Social Media Platforms’ Declining Enforcement of Voting Disinformation,” reveals that the social media platforms appear to have dramatically scaled-back their practices of removing or labeling dangerously false claims concerning widespread voter fraud.