John, Common Cause staff and volunteers are on the ground right now protecting voters in key states – and I wanted to rush you this real-time update to let you know the work your support is making possible today.
Common Cause has led our coalition to recruit volunteers on the ground in all 50 states – with over 20,000 dedicated volunteers signed up to help voters as they make their way to the polls. Our voting experts are identifying isolated issues with polling locations as they spring up – and helping local elections officials shut them down as they occur.
Texas
“We have heard of a handful of instances where individuals are feeling more emboldened to be within 100-foot-line of polling locations and questioning voters as they go into polling locations. But we’ve been able to work with election officials and respond to these issues in a way that voters can cast a ballot without risk of intimidation,” -Katya Ehresman, Common Cause Texas
Florida
“We want to make sure that voters who have moved recently within the state, have been displaced by Hurricane Ian, or who have moved for any reason know that they can go today to their Election Day polling place for their new residence and change their address right there at the polls and vote with regular ballots,” -Amy Keith, Common Cause Florida
Georgia
“We've had lines at some locations, but nothing out of hand at this point and there haven’t been waits over 30 minutes. We've also seen folks taking pictures of our volunteers, but we always say that the more visible that we are, the more curious people are going to be about our Election Protection program,” -Aunna Dennis, Common Cause Georgia.
North Carolina
“Things are going well in North Carolina today. And that’s in credit to all of the people who've worked with us for the last 15 years to guarantee long early voting periods, guaranteed curbside access to voters with disabilities and the ability to easily get and return absentee ballots,” -Jane Pinsky, Common Cause North Carolina.
Ohio
“In Ohio, it's the usual kind of questions that we've been getting like ‘what's my polling location? What’s the appropriate ID in Ohio?’ It looks like people are enthusiastically voting today and out there,” -Catherine Turcer, Common Cause Ohio.
Social Media Disinformation
“We’re largely seeing [disinformation] narratives originate from places like Telegram and then spread to more mainstream and more widely used networks. This is usually what happens when people are brought into these types of conspiratorial thinking about elections through a mainstream platform and then end up organizing and learning more about it on fringe platforms, or they take these ideas from the fringe platform and go to the mainstream platform,” -Emma Steiner, Disinformation Analyst.
Youth Voting
“We want to be sure that young and Black youth have a friendly face to turn to if they encounter any challenges to voting on Election Day. We have more than 100 youth out at polling locations in Georgia, Maryland, and North Carolina protecting the freedom to vote for all, regardless of age, party, or location,” -Alyssa Canty, Director of Youth Programs
John, this is the kind of work we can only do thanks to the dedicated support of grassroots activists like you.
If you haven’t already cast your vote today – please do, before polls close tonight. You can find everything you need in our voting toolkit.
If you need assistance at the polls, don’t hesitate to reach out to our voter hotline, 866-OUR-VOTE, which is staffed with legal experts who can help make sure your vote counts.
And remember that election night may not be results night – with absentee ballots coming in nationwide, states may need extra time to make sure every vote is counted.
Finally, thank you for all you’ve done to help our democracy this year. Whether you’ve donated, volunteered your time, or taken one of our important advocacy actions like writing a letter to your lawmakers or signing a petition, you are a crucial part of the work we do to protect our democracy. We couldn’t do it without you.
I’m glad to have you with us,
Marilyn Carpinteyro, Vice President of Programs and Strategy
and the team at Common Cause
P.S. Join us this Thursday for a full debrief about the election – where we’ll discuss everything from accomplishments and election results to our goals moving into 2023. RSVP today!
