John, my home state of Texas just showed us how chaotic November’s election could be – if we don’t take immediate action.
You see, last week we held our first elections under the legislature's new, draconian anti-voter law – 2022's party primaries. And almost by design, the result was poll worker shortages, registration issues, and technical glitches that knocked some polling places out by hours.
John, unfortunately, if we don’t act immediately, these issues will come back with a vengeance in November – and not just here in Texas.
We learned from 2020 that our best chance to spot voting issues for the general election is during the primary – which is why our team was on the ground to document problems and help voters solve them.
We were already prepared for the chilling effect of voting changes that saw thousands of mail-in ballot applications rejected – with many more voters afraid of that uncertainty and forced to vote in-person during a pandemic, just to exercise their most fundamental right.
And to make matters worse, election-day issues in Harris County – the most populous county in the state – meant that tens of thousands of absentee ballots hadn’t yet been counted by the new statutory deadline of 24 hours.
In short, it was an absolute recipe for disaster – but exactly what you’d expect after far-right legislators forced an already overburdened and underfunded voting system to comply with new extremist restrictions.
Predictably, bad-faith partisans have jumped on the chaos – caused by their very same anti-democracy ideology – to further push Trump’s Big Lie about the legitimacy of the election.
But there’s good news, John: we’re already on the ground, building a giant Election Protection program designed to tackle these challenges in Texas and across the country, and scaling up to thousands of volunteers at polling places nationwide.
In 2020, we ran the largest non-partisan Election Protection program ever. In 2022 – based on the levels of interest we’ve already seen from our awesome volunteers – we expect to to match or even exceed the thousands of volunteers we trained and placed that year.
And it’s a good thing we do – because the levels of voter suppression and misinformation we expect to face have only intensified in the wake of Trump’s Big Lie.
Once again, we’re building an organization with both new and returning volunteers to spot and stop misinformation early before it can spread, assist voters at the polls, and proactively reach out to confused citizens who may not know about their rights.
John, we must respond to the challenges voters face during the primaries – because it's the only way we'll solve them in time for November. So, I’m asking you today to not give up the fight, and take action today – not six months from now – help us build this critically important Protect The Vote 2022 effort.
Your action now will ensure Common Cause and our partners can build an Election Protection effort strong enough to weather these threats to our democracy. Can you rush your contribution of $3 or more to our Election Protection coalition today?
John, seeing the news out of Texas may be disheartening, but it’s not the end of the story. Time and time again, we’ve seen the power of dedicated advocacy and committed supporters like you to protect and strengthen our democracy.
With your help, we’ll build a coalition large enough to protect every eligible voter from intimidation, confusion, and misinformation.
Thank you,
Anthony Gutierrez, Texas Executive Director
and the team at Common Cause
