Media Center

Today’s revelations from DHS that 21 state election systems were targeted by Russian hackers is troubling on a number of levels. First it should never have taken the federal government so long to share this information with the targeted states. Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that some states have told reporters that they were unaware of being targeted.

Americans have a right to know who is trying to influence their vote—whether hostile foreign nations like Russia, corporate front groups, or wealthy special interests. Facebook’s announcement this afternoon that it shared evidence of fake Facebook accounts and Russian political ads with Special Counsel Mueller and Congressional investigators was slow in coming but it is a step forward as are the broad brushstroke descriptions of their new policies.

Today, Common Cause and the Campaign Legal Center filed an amici brief in Washington State’s King County Superior Court in Elster v. City of Seattle in support of the city’s campaign finance voucher program. The brief makes clear that the Seattle program is consistent with a host of other citizen-funded elections programs upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court since campaign finance reforms were enacted in the wake of the Watergate scandals to curb the buying and selling of influence in the halls of government.

Governor Rick Snyder was quick to sign two bills today that will increase the influence of special interests in Michigan. SB 335 and SB 336 are unacceptable attacks on the democratic process by expanding the damage from the Supreme Court’s disastrous 2010 Citizens United decision in Michigan. Common Cause had organized its 30,000 Michigan members to email and call Gov. Snyder, urging him to veto the bills.

Last night, the General Assembly passed important legislation to increase security of Rhode Island elections with post-election audits to ensure the accuracy of vote counts. The bills, once they are signed by Governor Gina Raimondo who has publicly supported them, will phase in the use of an innovative procedure called risk-limiting post-election audits. These audits serve as a check on the initial machine counts reported on election night, and confirm that our election results are correct.

Common Cause and registered voters from Florida, Texas, and New York, filed a complaint against Kris Kobach, Vice-Chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, to halt his unprecedented and unlawful investigation into individual American voters.