Common Cause fights to ensure that government works for all Americans, not the wealthy few

Note from the CREDO Mobile team: This December, Common Cause is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO Mobile community will help Common Cause in its mission to build a democracy that works for everyone and ensure that our government serves all the people, not just the wealthy and partisan special interests.

Read this important blog post about Common Cause’s critical work, then visit CREDODonations.com and cast your vote to help send funding to Common Cause to support its efforts—and the efforts of our other outstanding December grantees.

First, thank you. Thank you so much for staying engaged throughout all the chaos and for investing your time, energy and money in so many worthy fights. Thank you for embracing our wins (big and small) and refusing to let go of hope.

We’re approaching a fiercely contested election amid a landscape rife with threats to our democracy: the rising tide of authoritarianism and violence; political insiders rigging electoral maps that shut people out; expanding disinformation fueled by unaccountable social media platforms and turbocharged by unregulated AI; and relentless assaults on voting rights by state legislatures and right-wing courts.

Despite the darkness we have been through and continue to dig out of, there is light. Together with our 1.5 million members and supporters across the country and with our activists in every Congressional district, we’ve achieved a year of victories that many thought were impossible.

How did we do it? For 53 years, Common Cause has married federal, state and local democracy work to win, building deep on-the-ground power through our 25 state offices: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

We remove barriers to the ballot box, especially for people of color and marginalized communities, and push back against bad legislation and bad actors who want to suppress or thwart the vote. We run year-round election-protection programs, combat democracy disinformation, work to end partisan gerrymandering and more. Want to help? Join our pro-democracy movement here and volunteer.

Read on to learn more about how Common Cause is working around the clock to protect the will of the people and defend and nourish our most valuable national asset: our democracy.

State actions

We pass pro-democracy laws and block or blunt the impacts of bad voting bills proposed by Republican-controlled states aiming to suppress the votes of communities of color, young people and others whose voices are frequently marginalized.

Texas: We defeated dangerous bills that would have created harsh enforcement of suppressive election laws, allowed election judges to carry guns in polling places, banned voting on campuses and ended the countywide voting program.

Pennsylvania: We stopped a Republican group’s attempt to purge the state voter rolls.

Michigan: We passed key bills that expand early, in-person voting, require state-funded absentee-ballot drop boxes and postage for absentee applications and ballots, and require that only election officials can conduct post-election audits.

New York: We passed a permanent vote-by-mail bill.

Colorado: We pushed through a bill to make Colorado the first state in the nation to expand automatic voter registration to tribal nations.

New Mexico: We passed a historic voting rights package and have strengthened protections for our frontline election workers.

Ohio: We delivered a historic win as Issue 1 went down to defeat, saving people-led ballot initiatives from a power grab by state legislators.

Election protection

As co-leader of the National Election Protection Coalition, Common Cause oversees strategic vision and planning in 40-plus states. Our work includes recruiting, training, mobilizing and debriefing tens of thousands of volunteers each election.

Field: We recruited 50,000 Election Protection Volunteers in 40 states between 2020 and 2022.

Tech: We built a mobilization tool that managed 20,000 volunteer sign-ups in 41 states in 2022. We’re on track to more than double that in 2024.

Education: In a rapidly evolving environment, with new voting and election laws and changing district lines, we serve as a trusted nonpartisan source of information that voters need to participate with confidence.

Policy reform: There are hundreds of policy choices every election cycle that make it harder or easier for voters to participate. Our priorities include:

• Making it easier for voters to register and stay registered to vote.
• Expanding access to the ballot.
• Protecting voters and our elections from political violence, election sabotage/subversion, cyberattacks, natural disasters and other threats.

Combatting democracy disinformation

We play the key intel-gathering and messaging-dissemination role within the democracy disinformation ecosystem. We’re the only organization leading this type of communication and rapidly disseminating it to the states. We recruited and trained over 2,000 social media monitors during the past midterm elections.

Redistricting and representation: In order for people to hold elected officials accountable, elections have to be run by rules that are fair, using district maps that don’t preordain winners. Common Cause is committed to securing redistricting reforms and fair maps through movement building, legislative changes and litigation.

Media and democracy: We protect a free and open internet and an independent press by restoring net neutrality, blocking media mergers that would drown out local journalism and expanding access to broadband. We set a groundbreaking FCC precedent by successfully defending local news from what would have been one of the largest hedge fund media takeovers in our country’s history by stopping Standard General and Tegna from merging. We pressured AT&T/DirecTV and Verizon to drop far-right, pro-Trump One America News (OAN).

Justice and democracy: Common Cause restores voting rights to justice-involved citizens and works to end prison gerrymandering. We won back voting rights for 50,000 Minnesotans with past felony convictions who are still on parole, probation or have not completed some components of their sentences.

Youth and democracy: We’re building a pipeline of democracy activists with a focus on HBCUs in Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Mississippi and Maryland. We train students in campus organizing, GOTV and the nuances of voting in their state.

Thank you for all that you do year-round in service of a better, more inclusive democracy. We hope your holiday season is spent with family and friends, recharging your batteries, and full of celebration, reflection and recommitment to enter 2024 with strength and grace.

Learn more about Common Cause and the work we do at CommonCause.org.