836 Search Results Containing "voting"
New report about voting in Pennsylvania jails shows each county runs things differently, creating a patchwork of policies across the state
“You have jails with the actual policies in place, and there’s a gap between the policy and actual implementation,” said Khalif Ali, head of Common Cause Pennsylvania. “If you simply say, ‘Oh, yeah, you guys can vote,’ and there’s nothing else, you’re essentially telling them: ‘Figure it out.’”
Found in: Common Cause Pennsylvania
Draw Your Community's Map - Re-Draw Your Voting Districts
These free, online redistricting mapping tools will help you express your community's identity as you define it--and then map it! Connecticut doesn't require legislators to consider "Communities of Interest" when re-drawing your voting district lines--but using these free tools you can re-draw YOUR OWN district and submit it to lawmakers asking them to incorporate it.
Found in: Common Cause in Connecticut
CNN: 2013 Voting Rights Act ruling could make it easier for states to get away with extreme racial gerrymandering
To analyze whether a map is Voting Rights Act-compliant, one needs to look at past election results, often at the precinct level, and not every state offers such information in a single database, according to Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director for the voting rights group Common Cause. "You would have to go to each county, and each county would give it to you in a slightly different format, and you have to figure out how that all could be put together," Feng said
Found in: Common Cause
Sinclair Broadcast Group/KATV: The new Texas voting law: What it does and does not do
“Rather than making it easier for Texans to vote for elected leaders who will prioritize our health and safety above their political ambitions, Governor Abbott has just attempted to silence voters from being heard in the next election,” said Stephanie Gomez, associate director of Common Cause Texas, one of the organizations suing over the new law.
Found in: Common Cause
Washington Post: New Texas voting bill deepens growing disparities in how Americans can cast their ballots
“We’ve had a very functional system of election administration,” said Common Cause Ohio Executive Director Catherine Turcer, adding, “It is genuinely surprising that after a successful election where more Ohio voters participated than ever before, that any legislator would think about making it harder to vote.” ... Turcer, of Common Cause Ohio, said voters’ confidence would grow if they understood the election rules already in place. “The distrust of election officials and election administration has run really deep, and we need to do a good job of educating people about how elections work and what kind of security measures we have,” she said. “We shouldn’t assume that wrong things are being done. We should all go into it asking good questions but waiting to understand how it actually works.”
Found in: Common Cause
Salon: Georgia GOP called "shameless" for trying to use new voting law to oust local election officials
"It appears that they would like to take over the county board of elections," Aunna Dennis, the executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said in an interview with Salon, calling the move part of a "coordinated strategy" that represents Republican "opposition to, basically, democracy." Dennis also warned that "whatever happens in Fulton is going to domino across the state" and that if this approach is successful for Republicans, other states with GOP-majority legislatures could soon follow. "This would become a domino effect across many states," she said. "If it happens in Georgia, people should definitely be looking out to see if major counties, and definitely progressive counties or cities who have large voting populations, will be targets as well."
Found in: Common Cause
Roll Call: 5 things to know about the voting rights bill named for John Lewis
“When you go back and read the Shelby County decision, it didn’t actually strike down the concept of preclearance itself,” said Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel for public policy and government affairs at Common Cause, which supports the legislation. Instead, it struck down the formula to determine which states had to get preclearance, he added. The court said the previous system was outdated. The bill would also subject certain proposed laws to preclearance, even potentially in jurisdictions that would not otherwise fall under the 25-year lookback criteria. The bill’s Section 6 would set out several practices, including changes to voter identification needed to vote and maintenance of voter rolls, that could be subject to preclearance. “All those that have been shown to be discriminatory would need to be precleared,” Spaulding said.
Found in: Common Cause
USA Today/Gannett: House Democrats approve voting-rights bill named after John Lewis as GOP calls it 'partisan power grab'
"If 10 Senate Republicans won’t support this bill, then Senate Democrats must reform the filibuster," said Sylvia Albert, Common Cause director of voting and elections. "The freedom to vote must be protected for every American."
Found in: Common Cause
Roll Call: House passes voting rights bill as White House, Senate face pressure
Aaron Scherb, director of legislative affairs for Common Cause, which supports the voting rights and the campaign and elections overhaul bills, said his group was ramping up in support of both measures. “We’re continuing to mobilize and energize our thousands of activists and volunteers to do whatever it takes to get the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act this fall,” he said.
Found in: Common Cause
House Passes and Senate Must Follow in Passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to Protect Every American’s Freedom to Vote
The House took a critically important step today toward protecting the freedom of every American to vote by passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The Senate must follow suit and pass this legislation to repair and strengthen the landmark Voting Rights Act which played a key role in beating back the racist and discriminatory Jim Crow laws . New discriminatory voting laws, designed to strip Black and Brown communities of political clout by making it harder for them to vote, are once again being passed after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013. This year, 18 states have already enacted 30 restrictive voting bills that make it harder for Americans to have a say in choosing our elected leaders.