SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
September, 03 2019, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
David Vance (202) 736-5712 dvance@commoncause.org, Aurora Matthews (301) 221-7984 aurora@newheightscommunications.com, Rebecca Autrey (202) 753-5904 rebecca.autrey@nyu.edu
New Report Details Rhode Island's Risk-Limiting Audit Tests to Identify Best System for 2020 Election
Today, Common Cause, Verified Voting, and The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law released a report on Rhode Island's pilot program to identify the most effective methods to implement the risk-limiting audits (RLA) required by the state for the 2020 election. The three organizations were part of a working group that helped the state design and run the pilots earlier this year.
WASHINGTON
Today, Common Cause, Verified Voting, and The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law released a report on Rhode Island's pilot program to identify the most effective methods to implement the risk-limiting audits (RLA) required by the state for the 2020 election. The three organizations were part of a working group that helped the state design and run the pilots earlier this year.
Risk-limiting audits use statistical sampling to compare back-up paper records of votes to electronic totals from voting machines. This method helps identify potential hacks, malfunctions, or other interference in the voting process. The report, "Risk-Limiting Audit Methods in the State of Rhode Island" documents the innovative approaches taken by the state to evaluate the effectiveness of three different RLA methods in order to choose the most effective system to ensure the integrity of their elections in 2020 and beyond.
Election administration and security experts agree that RLAs are the "gold standard" of post-election audits in an era when the integrity of our election systems face unprecedented domestic and international threats. These audits will provide an added layer of election protection to provide confidence that the reported winner is the actual winner.
"As only the second state in the nation to require risk-limiting audits, Rhode Island is a trailblazer," said John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island. "This report provides crucial data about how these audits perform that will be invaluable as their use spreads. It will prove a great resource to the growing number of state and local election officials assessing risk-limiting audits as they come to grips with the very real and growing threat to integrity of our elections from hostile foreign powers and others with vested interests in the outcomes of our elections."
The only other state currently requiring statewide RLAs is Colorado.
"This report gives election officials a roadmap on how to design and implement effective risk-limiting audits," said Marian K. Schneider, president of Verified Voting. "Rhode Island's Board of Elections' RLA pilot was a critical step toward increasing voter confidence and strengthening election security. Paper ballots, marked by hand or device, are the essential ingredient for ensuring that jurisdictions can recover from errors or tampering. Paper ballots coupled with routine risk-limiting audits are the best way to detect whether the software reported the election results accurately."
RLAs give election officials the tools they need to run secure and accurate elections without overwhelming data sets or exorbitant costs. The report details how three types of risk-limiting audits--ballot-level comparison, ballot polling and batch comparison--recommending that a ballot-level comparison audit be used in Rhode Island. Ballot-level comparison RLAs are efficient, transparent and have a relatively predictable cost. For all three methods the report provides first of its kind information about how long it takes to complete individual components of the audits as well as cost estimates.
"The risk-limiting audit is one of the most important tools states can use to bolster voter confidence and secure our elections for 2020 and beyond," said Wilfred Codrington, counsel in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. "Rhode Island officials still have a lot of work to do before 2020 to implement these audits statewide, and we believe that this report will serve as a useful resource for them. We also think it'll be a valuable tool for others across the country looking to follow the state's leadership on this critical component of election security."
Rhode Island will first employ risk-limiting audits for the 2020 presidential primaries, and RLAs will then see full implementation in statewide elections in November of 2020.
To read the full report, click here.
To view this release online, click here.
Common Cause is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to upholding the core values of American democracy. We work to create open, honest, and accountable government that serves the public interest; promote equal rights, opportunity, and representation for all; and empower all people to make their voices heard in the political process.
(202) 833-1200LATEST NEWS
In 'Serious Blow to Our Democracy,' Supreme Court Allows Trump Mass Firing Order
The high court's decision to "release the president's wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation," said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, "is not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless."
Jul 08, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a block on U.S. President Donald Trump's February executive order directing federal agency leaders to "promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force" and a related memorandum.
In response to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions, local governments, and nonprofits, Judge Susan Illston—appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by former President Bill Clinton—had issued a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction, which was upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in May.
That legal battle led to the Supreme Court's shadow docket, where emergency decisions don't have to be signed. The Tuesday opinion from the high court's unidentified majority states that Illston's injunction was based on a view that Trump's order implementing his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) "Workforce Optimization Initiative" and a joint memo from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management "are unlawful."
"Because the government is likely to succeed on its argument that the executive order and memorandum are lawful—and because the other factors bearing on whether to grant a stay are satisfied—we grant the application," the Supreme Court continued, emphasizing that the justices did not weigh in on the legality of any related agency reduction in force (RIF) and reorganization plans.
BREAKING: The Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to resume agency mass-firing plans over the dissent of Justice Jackson, who criticized "this Court’s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture." More to come at Law Dork:
[image or embed]
— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson publicly dissented on Tuesday. Another liberal, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, wrote in a short concurrence that "the plans themselves are not before this court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law. I join the court's stay because it leaves the district court free to consider those questions in the first instance."
Meanwhile, Jackson argued that "given the fact-based nature of the issue in this case and the many serious harms that result from allowing the president to dramatically reconfigure the federal government, it was eminently reasonable for the district court to maintain the status quo while the courts evaluate the lawfulness of the president's executive action."
She continued:
At bottom, this case is about whether that action amounts to a structural overhaul that usurps Congress' policymaking prerogatives—and it is hard to imagine deciding that question in any meaningful way after those changes have happened. Yet, for some reason, this court sees fit to step in now and release the president's wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation.
In my view, this decision is not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless. Lower court judges have their fingers on the pulse of what is happening on the ground and are indisputably best positioned to determine the relevant facts—including those that underlie fair assessments of the merits, harms, and equities. I see no basis to conclude that the district court erred—let alone clearly so—in finding that the president is attempting to fundamentally restructure the federal government.
Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts for Slate, said on social media that "Justice Jackson's criticism is spot-on, of course. But as Justice Sotomayor's concurrence suggests, SCOTUS' order looks like a negotiated compromise that leaves the district court room to block future RIFs and agency 'restructuring.' So the damage is limited."
"The real test will be what happens once agencies start to develop and implement plans for mass firings—which will, by and large, be illegal," he warned. "District courts still have discretion, for now, to stop them. Will SCOTUS freeze their orders and let unlawful RIFs and restructurings proceed? I fear it will."
Trump’s firings at federal agencies have upended the lives of thousands of workers.These are the people who oversee air safety, food and drug safety, disaster response, public health, and much more.Replacing civil servants with Trump loyalists is right out of Project 2025.
[image or embed]
— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 5:13 PM
The coalition that challenged the order and memo includes the American Federation of Government Employees and four AFGE locals; American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); Service Employees International Union and three SEIU Locals; Alliance for Retired Americans; American Geophysical Union; American Public Health Association; Center for Taxpayer Rights; Coalition to Protect America's National Parks; Common Defense; Main Street Alliance; Natural Resources Defense Council; Northeast Organic Farming Association Inc.; VoteVets; and Western Watersheds Project.
It also includes the governments of Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; Harris County, Texas; King County, Washington; and both San Francisco and Santa Clara County in California.
"Today's decision has dealt a serious blow to our democracy and puts services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy," the coalition said Tuesday. "This decision does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution."
"While we are disappointed in this decision," the coalition added, "we will continue to fight on behalf of the communities we represent and argue this case to protect critical public services that we rely on to stay safe and healthy."
Congressman Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was similarly critical but determined on Tuesday.
"The Trump-appointed Supreme Court just surrendered to a dangerous vision for America, letting the administration gut federal agencies by firing expert civil servants," he said. " The damage from these mass firings will last for decades, and weaken the government’s ability to respond to disasters and provide essential benefits and services. Oversight Democrats will not sit back as Trump turns the court into a political weapon. We will keep fighting to protect the American people and prevent the destruction of our federal agencies."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'An Arsenal of Profiteering': Military Contractors Have Gotten Over Half of Pentagon Spending Since 2020
"These figures represent a continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing," said the project's director.
Jul 08, 2025
Less than a week after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a budget package that pushes annual military spending past $1 trillion, researchers on Tuesday published a report detailing how much major Pentagon contractors have raked in since 2020.
Sharing The Guardian's exclusive coverage of the paper on social media, U.K.-based climate scientist Bill McGuire wrote: "Are you a U.S. taxpayer? I am sure you will be delighted to know where $2.4 TRILLION of your money has gone."
The report from the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson School of International and Public Affairs and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft shows that from 2020-24 private firms received $2.4 trillion in Department of Defense contracts, or roughly 54% of DOD's $4.4 trillion in discretionary spending for that five-year period.
The publication highlights that "during those five years, $771 billion in Pentagon contracts went to just five firms: Lockheed Martin ($313 billion), RTX (formerly Raytheon, $145 billion), Boeing ($115 billion), General Dynamics ($116 billion), and Northrop Grumman ($81 billion)."
In a statement about the findings, Stephanie Savell, director of the Costs of War Project, said that "these figures represent a continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing."
"This is not an arsenal of democracy—it's an arsenal of profiteering," Savell added. "We should keep the enormous and growing power of the arms industry in mind as we assess the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S. and globally."
Between 2020 and 2024, $771 billion in Pentagon contracts went to just five firms: Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman. By comparison, the total diplomacy, development, and humanitarian aid budget, excluding military aid, was $356 billion. [5/12]
[image or embed]
— The Costs of War Project (@costsofwar.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 2:43 PM
The paper points out that "by comparison, the total diplomacy, development, and humanitarian aid budget, excluding military aid, was $356 billion. In other words, the U.S. government invested over twice as much money in five weapons companies as in diplomacy and international assistance."
"Record arms transfers have further boosted the bottom lines of weapons firms," the document details. "These companies have benefited from tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel and Ukraine, paid for by U.S. taxpayers. U.S. military aid to Israel was over $18 billion in just the first year following October 2023; military aid to Ukraine totals $65 billion since the Russian invasion in 2022 through 2025."
"Additionally, a surge in foreign-funded arms sales to European allies, paid for by the recipient nations—over $170 billion in 2023 and 2024 alone—have provided additional revenue to arms contractors over and above the funds they receive directly from the Pentagon," the paper adds.
The 23-page report stresses that "annual U.S. military spending has grown significantly this century," as presidents from both major parties have waged a so-called Global War on Terror and the DOD has continuously failed to pass an audit.
Specifically, according to the paper, "the Pentagon's discretionary budget—the annual funding approved by Congress and the large majority of its overall budget—rose from $507 billion in 2000 to $843 billion in 2025 (in constant 2025 dollars), a 66% increase. Including military spending outside the Pentagon—primarily nuclear weapons programs at the Department of Energy, counterterrorism operations at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and other military activities officially classified under 'Budget Function 050'— total military spending grew from $531 billion in 2000 to $899 billion in 2025, a 69% increase."
Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed earlier this month "adds $156 billion to this year's total, pushing the 2025 military budget to $1.06 trillion," the document notes. "After taking into account this supplemental funding, the U.S. military budget has nearly doubled this century, increasing 99% since 2000."
Noting that "taxpayers are expected to fund a $1 trillion Pentagon budget," Security Policy Reform Institute co-founder Stephen Semler said the paper, which he co-authored, "illustrates what they'll be paying for: a historic redistribution of wealth from the public to private industry.”
Semler produced the report with William Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute. Hartung said that "high Pentagon budgets are often justified because the funds are 'for the troops.'"
"But as this paper shows, the majority of the department's budget goes to corporations, money that has as much to do with special interest lobbying as it does with any rational defense planning," he continued. "Much of this funding has been wasted on dysfunctional or overpriced weapons systems and extravagant compensation packages."
The arms industry has used an array of tools of influence to create an atmosphere where a Pentagon budget that is $1 trillion per year is deemed “not enough” by some members of Congress. [9/12]
[image or embed]
— The Costs of War Project (@costsofwar.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 2:43 PM
In addition to spotlighting how U.S. military budgets funnel billions of dollars to contractors each year, the report shines a light on the various ways the industry influences politics.
"The ongoing influence of the arms industry over Congress operates through tens of millions in campaign contributions and the employment of 950 lobbyists, as of 2024," the publication explains. "Military contractors also shape military policy and lobby to increase military spending by funding think tanks and serving on government commissions."
"Senior officials in government often go easy on major weapons companies so as not to ruin their chances of getting lucrative positions with them upon leaving government service," the report notes. "For its part, the emerging military tech sector has opened a new version of the revolving door—the movement of ex-military officers and senior Pentagon officials, not to arms companies per se, but to the venture capital firms that invest in Silicon Valley arms industry startups."
The paper concludes by arguing that "the U.S. needs stronger congressional and public scrutiny of both current and emerging weapons contractors to avoid wasteful spending and reckless decision-making on issues of war and peace. Profits should not drive policy."
"In particular," it adds, "the role of Silicon Valley startups and the venture capital firms that support them needs to be better understood and debated as the U.S. crafts a new foreign policy strategy that avoids unnecessary wars and prioritizes cooperation over confrontation."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Rights Group Applauds Vote by Largest US Teachers Union to Cut ADL Ties
"Despite its reputation as a civil rights organization, the ADL is not the social justice educational partner it claims to be," said the National Education Association.
Jul 08, 2025
A leading Muslim civil rights group was among those applauding on Tuesday after the largest labor union in the United States took a major step toward "fostering respect for the rights and dignity of all students in public schools" by voting to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League.
The National Education Association (NEA), which represents nearly 3 million educators, approved a measure saying it "will not use, endorse, or publicize materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or statistics."
The move is significant considering the influence the ADL has had over curriculum related to Israel in U.S. schools for decades, with the organization devising recent lesson plans about antisemitism "in the extreme political left" in the U.S., noting that such supposed antisemitism "is often centered on opposition to the state of Israel."
The ADL published a report last year that equated antisemitism with anti-Zionism and pointed to nationwide demonstrations against Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Palestinians in Gaza as evidence that antisemitism is on the rise in the United States. The group has also lobbied in favor of legislation like the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which critics have said could be used to limit the right to criticize Israel on school campuses.
The NEA's 7,000-member Representative Assembly voted for the measure on Sunday, finding that "despite its reputation as a civil rights organization, the ADL is not the social justice educational partner it claims to be."
In the lead-up to the vote, former Massachusetts Teachers Association president Merrie Najimy cited the ADL's attacks last year in the MTA as evidence that the national group is focused on rooting out and ostracizing critics of Israel's U.S.-backed policies and defenders of Palestinian rights—not on promoting civil rights for all members of school communities.
"This principled move is a significant step toward fostering respect for the rights and dignity of all students in public schools, who must receive an education without facing biased, politically driven agendas."
When the MTA's elected board of directors called on the union to create resources for teachers to use to educate themselves about the history of Palestine, the ADL accused the union of "glorifying terrorism" and displayed what the MTA called "manipulated" resources at a state commission hearing on antisemitism in February.
"We had been led to believe that the commission hearing would provide the opportunity for a thoughtful discussion about how to teach this very difficult conflict with our students," said the MTA about the ADL's use of the resources. "The way these resources were manipulated in such a fashion, so as to label the state's largest union of educators as promoters of antisemitism, remains one of the more deplorable displays witnessed at the State House."
Labor Notes reported on Monday that MTA members are still facing attacks stemming from the ADL's claims that the union was promoting antisemitism in schools.
"Why would we partner with an organization that does us harm?" Najimy said ahead of the NEA vote.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said Tuesday it welcomed the vote "to stop exposing public school students to biased materials provided by the Anti-Defamation League," and noted that in addition to "using false allegations of antisemitism to silence advocacy for Palestinian human rights," the ADL has historically demonstrated "opposition to Black movements for racial equality, including Black Lives Matter and the South African anti-apartheid movement."
ADL CEO and national director Jonathan Greenblatt wrote in the New York Jewish Week in 2016 that Black Lives Matter leaders "have expressed support for efforts to boycott and divest from the state of Israel" and claimed those efforts "often are rooted in bigotry." The group also targeted activists who opposed apartheid in South Africa
"The ADL has only become worse under its increasingly unhinged director Jonathan Greenblatt, who has repeatedly smeared and endangered students in recent years," said CAIR. "This principled move is a significant step toward fostering respect for the rights and dignity of all students in public schools, who must receive an education without facing biased, politically driven agendas."
CAIR pointed to recent statements made by Greenblatt in which he reportedly equated pro-Palestinian protesters to ISIS and falsely claimed that Jewish and other students protesting Israel's bombardment of Gaza are "campus proxies" for the Iranian government.
Palestinian-American civil rights attorney Huwaida Arraf said the ADL "has long masqueraded as a civil rights organization while actively working to suppress antiracist movements."
The anti-war group CodePink has led efforts to end the ADL's influence over public education, with organizer Marcy Winograd speaking out against the group's so-called "No Place for Hate" program earlier this year.
"The ADL's stated mission is to empower students, teachers, and parents to 'stand against bias and bullying...' with schoolwide pledges, projects, and games aimed at celebrating diversity and stamping out hate," wrote Winograd in a column at Common Dreams.
But when the Los Angeles Unified School District instituted the No Place for Hate program, its official website shared "an article attacking American Muslims for Palestine for 'being at the core of the anti-Israel and anti-Zionist movement in the United States.'"
"While selling schools on activities to bolster respect and community, the ADL... engineers the death of debate over Israel's right to exist as a Jewish nationalist state in historic Palestine," wrote Winograd.
"Schools," she wrote, "are no place for the ADL."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular