During the run-up to the November election, news reports pointed to a disturbing trend with potentially far-reaching consequences for American elections. Several Trump-aligned “stop the steal” candidates for the office of secretary of state in swing states had won their GOP primaries and seemed poised to become those states’ top election officials.
Secretary-of-state races rarely garner much attention, given that this is a largely thankless job that involves administering each state’s election system. But after Trump denied the results of the 2020 presidential election – and claimed vast voter fraud, despite being rebuked by every court that reviewed the allegations – the GOP groomed scores of election deniers for various offices.
In fact, election denial had become a key tenet of the GOP given the unyielding position that the party’s leader, Trump, took on the issue. A number of these candidates ran for congressional and gubernatorial spots (mostly in deep red states), but the concern focused on state secretaries because they are responsible for counting votes and certifying elections.
Election fraud has always popped up to some degree in a nation with 168 million registered voters, but even statistics from conservative groups suggest the problem is statistically small. Despite the flaws one finds in any bureaucratic enterprise, U.S. elections are remarkably secure. Putting in power those who claim that Democratic conspiracies cause GOP losses would undermine public trust in democracy.
Fortunately, voters in the 2022 general election understood the importance of these down-ticket races. “Nearly every single candidate in battleground state races who denied or questioned the results of the 2020 election was defeated for positions that oversee, defend and certify elections – a resounding loss for a movement that would have had the power to overturn future contests,” NBC News concluded.
Some of the results were exceedingly close, but America dodged a bullet. If voters swept deniers into office in a red wave, every race would be in question. The 2024 presidential election would almost certainly be a repeat of 2020, with vast swaths of the public questioning the results and extended legal battles. Our democracy is fragile enough without partisan assaults on the foundation of our system.
Consider what these illiberal candidates proposed. Nevada’s secretary of state candidate Jim Marchant promised he and other similar candidates would “fix the whole country” and assure that Trump would win again in 2024. He seemed to suggest that – as an election official in a major swing state – he was seeking a specific result rather than to fair-mindedly oversee election tallies.
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Secretaries of state are political positions, of course, but our system depends on them administering elections in an impartial and honorable manner. These candidates proposed “fixes” that included eliminating mail-in voting, decertifying election machines and returning to hand counts of ballots. They sowed doubt in the integrity of our elections and seemed intent on rolling back voting rights.
Overall, the Washington Post found, among 46 competitive statewide races of all types that featured election deniers, only seven won (with a few still being counted). In Pennsylvania, where the governor appoints the secretary of state, election-denier Doug Mastriano lost 56 percent to 42 percent.
And it was a clean sweep for secretaries of state. Apparently, voters understood the stakes and our democratic system lives to fight another day.