Sec of state SoS

note, this is state not fed level; often oversee election so target in 2 ways: 1) big lie death threats

2) target of takeover

see state local takeover eg Bannon

yikes America First Secretary of State Coalition,

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an 10 24

All across the country, Republican candidates who openly doubt the outcome of the 2020 election are running in statewide elections. This includes Republican nominees for both U.S. Senate races as well as gubernatorial elections, and even candidates seeking to oversee their respective state's elections.

CNN found that of the 51 Republican statewide hopefuls on the 2024 ballot, 23 of them — a full 45% of all Republican statewide candidates – are election deniers. And many election deniers are seeking office in some of the most hotly contested battleground states in presidential elections.

34 states are holding U.S. Senate elections in November. And 14 Republican Senate candidates have gone on the record supporting election-denying narratives. This includes incumbents like Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) and Rick Scott (R-Florida) as well as candidates seeking to oust Democrats like Sam Brown in Nevada, Kari Lake in Arizona, Bernie Moreno in Ohio and Royce White in Minnesota.

Governors also play an important role in safeguarding elections by signing Electoral College certificates after their respective states' electors meet following a presidential election. In the event a far-right election denier becomes governor, it's possible a legislature may have to intervene in order to make sure electoral college certificates get signed.

This possibility has become a concern for many former governors, who recently co-signed an open letter to current governors urging them to certify their states' Electoral College certificates following the November election. Co-signers include former Governors Jeb Bush (R-Florida), Tom Corbett (R-Pennsylvania), Gray Davis (D-California), Jim Hodges (D-South Carolina) and Mark Schweiker (R-Pennsylvania), among others.

"We write as bipartisan former Governors with an eye to December 11th. This is the deadline for issuing and sending Certificates of Ascertainment to the National Archives. This is six days before the Electoral College will meet in state capitals across our nation," the letter read. "While there is much to debate on the campaign trail, we expect all candidates and the American people will agree that this time-honored process during our post-election period is not open for debate. It is simply a ministerial and administrative duty."

Some of the more notable election deniers running for governor include Mike Braun in Indiana, Greg Gianforte in Montana, Mike Kehoe in Missouri, Patrick Morrisey in West Virginia and Mark Robinson in North Carolina. While four of those states are reliably red, North Carolina is regarded as a battleground state, with both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in a dead heat. Robinson is currently trailing Democrat Josh Stein – the current attorney general — in the gubernatorial race by double digits.

Perhaps the most dangerous office for an election denier to hold is secretary of state, which in most states is the official tasked with overseeing the conducting of all elections. Republican candidates who have gone on record casting doubt on the result of the 2020 election include Denny Hoskins in Missouri, Dennis Linthicum in Oregon, H. Brooke Paige in Vermont and Kris Warner in West Virginia.

Hoskins and Warner are heavily favored to win given their states' strong Republican leanings. After winning the Missouri Republican primary in August, Hoskins insinuated President Joe Biden was not the true winner of the 2020 election, saying: "[W]e have to ensure that none of the electoral fraud that took place in 2020 and stole the election from President Trump happens here."

According to CNN, Hoskins has also urged supporters to watch convicted felon Dinesh D'Souza's debunked film "2000 Mules," which baselessly suggests that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump via ballot drop boxes in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan. He is running against Democratic state representative Barbara Phifer in November.

Click here to read CNN's report in its entirety.

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omg

an 6 22

in Nevada, far-right MAGA Republican, QAnon ally and conspiracy theorist Jim Marchant has been a loud, aggressive promoter of the "big lie" — falsely claiming that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. And he is now the GOP nominee for Nevada secretary of state, which means that if he defeats the Democratic nominee, attorney Cisco Aguilar, in November, he will be the state’s top election official in 2023.

On Monday, June 14, Marchant was the clear winner in Nevada’s GOP secretary of state primary, picking up 38 percent of the vote and defeating second-place candidate Jesse Haw by 18 percent. The position Marchant is running for is presently held by Barbara Cegavske, a conservative Republican who was censured by the Nevada Republican Party for refusing to promote the "big lie" after now-President Joe Biden won the state in 2020. Cegavske, who is term-limited, maintained that there was no evidence to show that Biden didn’t win Nevada fair and square — and she was inundated with death threats from Trump supporters after certifying Biden’s victory in Nevada.

But Marchant has stressed that had he been Nevada secretary of state in 2020, he never would have certified Biden’s victory. Marchant is president of an organization called the America First Secretary of State Coalition, which has been promoting MAGA Republicans and Trump loyalists who are running for secretary of state positions — including Mark Finchem in Arizona and Kristina Karamo in Michigan. The group also promoted Rep. Jody Hice’s primary campaign against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, but that primary didn’t go well for the Trump-endorsed Hice; Raffensperger, who refused to go along with Trump’s "big lie," enjoyed a landslide victory.

In Pennsylvania, the America First Secretary of State Coalition is supporting Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, a “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theorist who has falsely claimed that Trump won Pennsylvania in 2020. If elected governor in November, Mastriano will have a chance to pick Pennsylvania’s next secretary of state; in Pennsylvania, the secretary of state is chosen by the governor.

The term “voter suppression” is usually used to describe all the ways in which GOP-sponsored laws at the state level are making it more difficult to vote, such as eliminating or reducing early voting and mail-in ballots —and it is no coincidence that they are targeting heavily Democratic areas. But what Marchant and others in the America First Secretary of State Coalition are proposing is much more dangerous than making voting more difficult or inconvenient. Marchant is part of a movement in which MAGA Republicans are trying to take over the administration of elections and be in a position to simply throw out election results they don’t like.

One of Marchant’s main allies is QAnon extremist Wayne Willott, a.k.a. Juan O. Savin, who co-founded the America First Secretary of State Coalition. Members of QAnon were among the extremists who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, but Willott’s involvement in QAnon obviously doesn’t bother Marchant.

If the 2022 midterms see a major red wave and enough MAGA Republicans are victorious at the state level, it could affect the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. MAGA secretaries of state could refuse to certify any Democratic Electoral College victories in swing states, making false claims of election fraud just as Trump’s allies did in 2020.

From Pennsylvania to Michigan to Arizona, the MAGA movement and “Stop the Steal” Republicans are determined to be in control regardless of the actual outcome of elections — and in Nevada, that includes secretary of state nominee Jim Marchant.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/qanon-followers/

no lnx twt

QAnon followers are focused on 'a new project' in swing states

Meaghan Ellis February 11, 2022

QAnon enthusiasts, who believe former President Donald Trump represents some form of new world order, are now focusing on a different plot in hopes of regaining control of the White House.

According to The Guardian, QAnon advocates have turned their attention toward Secretary of State election races in various swing states.So, why do these races have the attention of QAnon followers? They believe these particular races could be the key to ensuring there is not a repeat of the 2020 presidential election. In many swing states, Republican election officials refused to assist Trump in overturning the presidential election.

Now, QAnon believers and far-right extremists are adamant about putting people in place who align with Trump's beliefs. Alex Kaplan, a senior researcher at Media Matters for America who has studied the evolution of conspiracy theories, explained how QAnon's actions could create more problems in the very near future.

“This is the way that QAnon could trigger a constitutional crisis,” said Kaplan. “QAnon is linked to an effort to recruit and elect candidates to positions directly controlling election administrations, and given their ties to harming democracy, that is very concerning.”

Per The Guardian, QAnon's agenda and their strategic plot to control the outcome of elections was detailed by former Republican lawmaker and Trump loyalist, Jim Marchant who is currently running to become a high-ranking election official inNevada. Marchant revealed the moment he was propositioned by QAnon advocates and QAnon influencer Juan Savin aboutrunning for Secretary of State. It was at that moment when he realized those particular election races could be a key to controlling elections.

“I knew right then that they had figured out that we need to take back the secretary of state offices around the country. Not only did they ask me to run, they asked me to put together a coalition of other like-minded secretary of state candidates. I got to work, Juan O Savin helped, and we formed a coalition.”

Savin has also spoken out about the QAnon agenda. In January, Savin also shared details about the supposed "project" the movement had in place. Marchant explained, “We have a project that we are doing helping candidates across the country that we started here in Nevada that has prospered pretty well, with a number of Trump endorsements."

On Sunday, Savin also weighed in on “the secretary of state stuff”, as he boasted that “across the country we are gaining strength rapidly to get back into this game in an effective way. A lot of those offices that they thought they held and weren’t going to matter, we are going to flip those.”...

https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/heres-what-we-know-about-the-texas-voter-citizen-checks-and-its-not-what-donald-trump-claimed/

Alexa Ura, The Texas Tribune

Jan. 25, 2019

“Texas officials flag tens of thousands of voters for citizenship checks”was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

The Texas secretary of state’s office announced Friday it would send local election officials a list of 95,000 registered voters who the state says counties should consider checking to see whether they are U.S. citizens and, therefore, legally eligible to vote.

In an advisory released Friday afternoon, the office said it was flagging individuals who had provided the Texas Department of Public Safety with some form of documentation — including a work visa or a green card — that showed they were not a citizen when they were obtaining a driver’s license or an ID card. Among the individuals flagged, about 58,000 individuals cast a ballot in one or more elections from 1996 to 2018, the secretary of state’s office said.

It’s unclear exactly how many of those individuals are not actually U.S. citizens and whether that number will be available in the future. In its notice to counties, the secretary of state’s office said the names should be considered “WEAK” matches, using all capital letters for emphasis.

That means counties may now choose to investigate the eligibility of the individuals who were flagged, which would require them to send a notice asking for proof of citizenship within 30 days, or take no action. By law, the counties aren’t allowed to automatically revoke a voter’s registration without sending out such a notice.

It’s possible that individuals flagged by the state — who provided DPS with documentation that indicated they were authorized to be in the country — could have become naturalized citizens since they obtained their driver’s license or ID card. A spokesman for the secretary of state said officials are “very confident” that the data received from DPS is “current.”

In announcing the review of the rolls, Secretary of State David Whitley — who was appointed to the post last month after serving as deputy chief of staff to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott — immediately handed the data over to the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who said his office will “spare no effort in assisting with these troubling cases.”

But without additional verification, you can’t say these individuals all engaged in illegal voting, said Chris Davis, the head of the Texas Association of Elections Administrators.

“People get naturalized,” Davis said. “It’s entirely too early to say that.”

The numbers were released just a few weeks into a legislative session during which lawmakers may take up proposals to require some form of citizenship verification before registering to vote. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 rejected states’ efforts to require proof of citizenship to register to vote. Other federal courts have knocked down more recent efforts.

“Integrity and efficiency of elections in Texas require accuracy of our state’s voter rolls, and my office is committed to using all available tools under the law to maintain an accurate list of registered voters,” Whitley said in a statement.

But Beth Stevens, voting rights legal director for the Texas Civil Rights Project, said the announcement echoed efforts around the country to remove eligible voters from the rolls.

“The secretary’s actions threaten to result in tens of thousands of eligible voters being removed from the roles, including those with the least resources to comply with the demand to show papers,” Stevens said.

In a state where about 15.8 million Texans are registered to vote, the AG’s office has recently pursued a small number of convictions of illegal voting by non-citizens. Past reviews of the voter rolls by other states ultimately found that only a small number of the thousands of non-citizens they initially flagged had actually voted. For years, researchers have found that voter fraud is rare and claims that non-citizens are voting in large numbers have not been substantiated.

Read related Tribune coverage

MATCHING UP SECRETARIES OF STATE WITH DONORS TO TALK BALLOT MEASURES

Secretaries of State are charged with ensuring fair and accurate elections, but as the New York Times reported this week, under the leadership of RSLC, these state officials are working “to defeat liberal ballot initiatives on topics like the minimum wage, and to raise money from corporations that also wanted to kill these efforts.”

The Times reported that on May 3, four Republican secretaries of state, Jon Husted of Ohio; Wayne Williams of Colorado; Barbara Cegavske of Nevada; and Kim Wyman of Washington, met with the National Restaurant Association to discuss minimum wage initiatives in Colorado, Washington and Ohio,as well as minimum wage battles in Cincinnati and Seattle. The NRA is a proponent of the $2.15 tipped minimum wage and a major corporate opponent to Fight for $15 and any effort to raise the wage.

That meeting was followed by one with Reynolds Tobacco to discuss tobacco tax ballot initiatives. What was decided at those meetings was not disclosed.

The Times also revealed that the RSLC created tiered sponsorship packages that rewarded its largest donors with “private briefings with Secretaries of State,” and with regular ballot initiative briefings led by the Center for Conservative Initiatives, a project of the State Government Leadership Foundation, a “dark money” social welfare organization originally seed-funded by Exxon, Pfizer, and Time Warner, among other corporations.

RSLC SPENDING IN THE STATES

The suppression of vote pairing. In brief, web sites sprang up to match Nader supporters in swing states like Florida with Gore supporters in non-swing states like Texas: the Nader supporters in Florida would vote for Gore and the Gore supporters in Texas would vote for Nader. This would have allowed Nader to still get his fair share of the vote and perhaps get into the Presidential debates, while also allowing Gore to carry swing states. Six Republican state secretaries of state, led by Bill Jones of California,threatened the web sites with criminal prosecution and caused some of them reluctantly to shut down. The ACLU got involved to protect the web sites, and the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Bill Jones two years later, but by then the election was over. The vote pairing web sites tallied 1,412 Nader supporters in Florida who vote paired for Gore, and if only a few more of the 97,421 people who did vote for Nader in Florida had known about vote pairing, the election might have had a different outcome.