Atlanta, April 30 (BUS): Add another batch of contests to the heated congressional and gubernatorial races that will dominate this year’s midterm elections: secretaries of state, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
Former President Donald Trump’s attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election and his subsequent endorsement of candidates for government office sympathetic to his view have elevated these races to the top. At stake, say Democrats and others interested in fair elections, is less than American democracy.
Kristen Todd Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey, said a Republican has retracted false allegations made by Trump and his allies about widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election. “This is an attempt to replace the people who are supervising these races – to change the rules to make the results appear the way they want them to.”
The primary season goes into effect next week with elections in Ohio and Indiana. Ohio voters will decide which candidate will emerge from the Republican primary for secretary of state, with the eventual winner favoring the position in the Republican-dominated state.
The primaries for the top electoral offices will follow over the next few weeks in Nebraska, Idaho, Alabama and the presidential battlefield in Georgia. While Indiana also holds primary Tuesdays, the nominees for the secretary of state and some other offices won’t be decided until party meetings in June.
In all, voters in about two dozen states will decide who will be the primary election official in their state this year. In three politically significant states — Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas — the office will be filled by whoever wins the governor’s race. In New Hampshire, the decision will be made by the state legislature – currently controlled by Republicans.
The United States, a nonpartisan defense organization co-founded by Whitman, has been tracking the secretaries of state races and has identified nearly two dozen Republican candidates who have denied the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Among them is John Adams, the former state representative who challenged the current Ohio Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, in Tuesday’s Republican primary. “There’s no way Trump will lose,” Adams said, and said LaRose was no different from Stacy Abrams, a Democrat and national voting rights advocate who is running for governor of Georgia.
LaRose didn’t talk much about the 2020 election during the campaign, other than saying it was safe in Ohio and promoting his office’s prosecution of voter fraud issues. It was a departure from the 2020 vote in which he praised the work of bipartisan election officials in conducting smooth elections, boosted voter access and provided statistics that show how rare voter fraud is.
Earlier this year, LaRose brushed off questions about whether his rhetoric had changed.
“Unfortunately, some people want to make a political issue out of this,” he said. “Of course, it is right to be concerned about the integrity of the elections.”
That pivot was enough to win the support of Trump, who is considering another presidential bid in 2024, and said LaRose was “dedicated to a safe election.” LaRose was touting the endorsement.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said it’s important for Republican secretaries of state, in particular, to tell the truth about the 2020 election.
“Those ministers who accept the support of election rejecters or accept the support of a former president who publicly interfered with the outcome of a free and fair election are abdicating their role and responsibility to stand as nonpartisan custodians and choosing to position their supporters,” Benson said in an interview.
This year, the most famous races will take place in four of the six states where Trump opposed his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Michigan. Trump has endorsed the Secretary of State’s nominees on everything but one, supporting those who support his false claims.
There is no evidence of widespread fraud or wrongdoing. Judges, including those appointed by Trump, have dismissed dozens of lawsuits brought by the former president and his allies after the 2020 election.
Last year, an Associated Press review of every possible case of voter fraud for 2020 in the six states contested by Trump found that there were nowhere near enough cases to change the outcome.
Cristina Karamo, Trump’s Michigan pick, is the first to advance to the November election after state Republicans nominated her at the party convention on April 23. Karamo, a community college professor, gained prominence after the 2020 election claiming that she witnessed irregularities in mail-in ballot processing while working as an election observer in Detroit.
At a rally with Trump before the conference, she accused the media of trying to demonize her, adding that “corruption in our electoral systems is a threat to national security.” She will face Benson, a former law school dean who is seeking her second term.
“All one has to imagine is what it would have been like or what it would have been like if Brad Ravensberger had said, ‘Yes, I’ll find you these sounds and I’ll give you Georgia,'” Benson said. elections and serves as foreign minister.”
Ravensburger is the Republican Secretary of State in Georgia who has withstood tremendous pressure to support the results of the presidential race there, which Biden won. In the post-election phase, Trump called Ravensberger and asked him to “find” nearly 12,000 votes to rescind Biden’s victory.
Of the 25 secretaries of state vying for the ballot this year, nine are Republicans and seven incumbent Democrats are vying to retain their seats. While only one of the Democratic incumbents has faced a challenger, seven Republican secretaries will face at least one opponent from the Republican Party who either denies Biden’s victory or makes baseless claims that the election is not safe.
This includes Ravensberger, who has rejected Trump’s demands and directed three primary challengers. Among them, a Trump-endorsed representative, U.S. Representative Judy Hayes, who objected to the electoral vote count in Georgia in favor of Biden.
In nine states, incumbents chose not to seek re-election, or to run for higher or limited-term office, leaving the contests open. This includes Arizona and Nevada, which will be holding primaries in the coming months.
Both races feature Republican candidates — Mark Finchim of Arizona and Jim Marchant of Nevada — who have questioned the outcome of the 2020 election.
Another high-profile race unfolds in Colorado, as a Republican county clerk accused of a security breach of voting systems competes to challenge Secretary of State Gina Griswold, a Democrat seeking a second term.
Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters denied the accusations, calling them politically motivated. She has been a frequent guest on conservative media and has appeared on various occasions with Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow and a Trump ally who sought to prove that voting machines were somehow manipulated in 2020.
In an interview earlier this year, Peters said she is committed to getting the truth out of what happened in 2020 and hopes that “the forces that – rather than taking the time to attack me – will solve violent crimes, look at electoral irregularities and find the truth.”
Colorado Republicans will decide who their nominee will be in late June.
“Americans will have a very simple choice – do we want people who oversee elections and who believe in upholding the will of the voter no matter how they vote?” Griswold said. “Or do we want extremist politicians who will do whatever it takes to turn the election in their favor and claim victory no matter how the American people vote?”
AOQ