Secretaries of State will play a critical role in managing and certifying the presidential election in 2024. The distinct possibility that some of these secretaries will be people with a history of refusing to vote poses a significant challenge to American democracy — especially since former President Donald Trump, the who is widely expected to run again in 2024, continues to push state officials to reject the will of voters. The Republican candidates for Secretary of State in the November 2022 midterm elections include three swing-state candidates who tried to overturn the 2020 results in their home states: Mark Finchem of Arizona, Kristina Karamo of Michigan and Jim Marchant of Nevada. The Republican candidate in Republican-controlled Alabama, Wes Allen, has voiced his support for a 2020 lawsuit trying to convince the Supreme Court to throw out Joe Biden’s victory. The Republican candidate in GOP-dominated Indiana, Diego Morales, has called the 2020 election a “fraud,” the vote “tainted” and the outcome “questionable.” Democratic-leaning but regularly competitive Minnesota Republican candidate Kim Crockett has described her state’s 2020 election as “lawless.” The Republican candidate in Democratic-dominated Connecticut, Dominick Rapini, is the former chairman of a group that has made unsubstantiated allegations of 2020 fraud. New Mexico Republican candidate, but sometimes competitive, Audrey Trujillo has called the 2020 election stolen. So are the Republican candidates in Massachusetts and Vermont, both obscure figures who face long odds to win their liberal states in November. There are some significant differences in the intensity with which these 10 candidates are committed to electoral rejection. For example, Morales acknowledged in June that Biden “legitimately occupies” the presidency, while Finchem, a serial proponent of wild conspiracy theories about the election, has persisted this year in his feeble bid to overturn Biden’s victory in Arizona. Read about them here.
