Democracy Is On The Ballot In These 11 Secretary Of State And Attorney General Elections
The aftermath of the 2020 presidential election was probably most Americans’ introduction to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state who rebuffed then-President Donald Trump’s entreaties to “find 11,780 votes” that would allow him to carry the state. Same with Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general who filed a baseless lawsuit to get the Supreme Court to throw out 60 of then-President-elect Biden’s electoral votes.
Secretaries of state and state attorneys general have always been influential within their own states, but the attempted abuse of these offices to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election has finally awakened the rest of the country to their importance. As a result, campaigns for these offices that flew under the radar in 2014 (when Paxton was first elected) and 2018 (when Raffensperger was) have been thrust into the national spotlight here in 2022.
This year, 27 secretaries of state and 30 attorneys general will be elected nationwide (other states either elect them in other years or don’t elect them at all). And since the secretaries of state and attorneys general who are elected in 2022 will wield power in 2024, this year’s elections could plunge our democracy into further danger if would-be election subverters win them.
Secretary of state
As the ones who oversee the administration of elections and the certification of results in most states, secretaries of state play a fundamental role in our democracy. And given their discretion to interpret and implement election laws in ways that either make it easier or harder to vote, they’ve already drawn a lot of attention for 2022: Candidates for the office are raising record sums of money, Trump has personally pushed to install loyalists in three key states, and incumbents who otherwise might have sailed to an uncontroversial reelection are now facing rabid primary challenges.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democracy-is-on-the-ballot-in-these-11-secretary-of-state-and-attorney-general-elections/
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