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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 Trumps 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 Bidens 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 dont elect them at all). And since the secretaries of state and attorneys general who are elected in 2022 will wield power in 2024, this years elections could plunge our democracy into further danger if would-be election subverters win them.

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, theyve 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.

The list of secretary of state elections to watch starts with Georgia, where Raffensperger first faces a tough primary from Rep. Jody Hice. While Raffensperger has made it clear there was no election fraud in Georgia and that Biden won the state, his challenger Hice voted against the certification of the 2020 election in the House. He also continued to baselessly claim that hundreds of thousands of potentially fraudulent votes were cast and that Trump, in fact, carried Georgia. (He didnt.) Hice isnt the only election denier in the race, though: Former Alpharetta Mayor David Belle Isle has claimed there were irregularities in the 2020 election, too.

Its still early, but Hice looks like the primary front-runner. Through the end of January, he has raised $1.6 million to Raffenspergers $597,000 and Belle Isles $376,000, and he has the golden ticket in any GOP nomination fight: Trumps endorsement. But his path to the secretary of states office is not clear in this newly minted swing state. Whichever Republican emerges from the primary will then face a tough general election against the well-funded ($1.1 million raised so far) Democratic state Rep. Bee Nguyen in November.

Trump and his allies arent just targeting their fellow Republicans, though. Democratic secretaries of state who spent the 2020 election cycle expanding voting access are in the crosshairs, too. The most vulnerable Democrat is likely Jocelyn Benson of Michigan. And unlike in most states, her Republican challenger will be chosen at a party convention, not a primary, which could lead to a more radical nominee who appeals to party diehards. Thats good news for college professor Kristina Karamo, who has Trumps endorsement.

Karamo became a right-wing celebrity when she claimed she witnessed fraud as a poll watcher in the 2020 election, and she has espoused conspiracy theories such as that Trump actually won Michigan and that the Jan. 6 rioters were actually members of antifa. Other Republicans in the race have more conventional resumes for the states chief election official: state Rep. Beau LaFave, Chesterfield Township Clerk Cindy Berry and Plainfield Township Clerk Cathleen Postmus.

Republicans are also hoping to flip control of the Arizona secretary of states office, but there, Democratic incumbent Katie Hobbs isnt running for reelection, leaving a crowded field of hopefuls to replace her. Former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes (who used to oversee elections in Arizonas most populous county) and state House Minority Leader Reginald Bolding are the two Democratic candidates and the only two candidates in the race who have acknowledged Bidens victory as legitimate.

Of the four Republicans in the race, meanwhile, two have tried to overturn the 2020 election results. State Rep. Shawnna Bolick, for instance, signed onto a resolution that urged Congress to award Arizonas Electoral College votes to Trump, and she also introduced a bill that would have allowed the legislature to revoke the certification of presidential elections in the state, although she has argued that she wasnt part of the Stop the Steal movement. Meanwhile, state Rep. Mark Finchem signed onto the same resolution as Bolick and attended the Jan. 6 insurrection. Finchem, who has Trumps endorsement, also has ties to the QAnon conspiracy theory and has identified as a member of the Oath Keepers, a far-right anti-government militia.

The two other GOP candidates, advertising executive Beau Lane and state Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, have declined to say whether the 2020 election was illegitimate, but Ugenti-Rita has voted like she thinks it was. She sponsored multiple voting restrictions that passed the legislature last year, and she initially supported an unfounded partisan audit into the 2020 election results in Maricopa County (although she later turned against it, complaining it had been botched). Ugenti-Rita has other baggage as well: A lobbyist has accused her of making unwanted sexual advances.

Nevadas secretary of state post is also open following the retirement of Republican Barbara Cegavske, who was censured by the state GOP for her insistence that the 2020 election was not fraudulent. Trump himself has not yet weighed in on the GOP primary here, but if he does, hell probably back former state Assemblyman Jim Marchant, who wants to conduct an Arizona-style audit into Nevadas results and attended an election-fraud conference put on by businessman and Trump ally Mike Lindell. Another well-funded Republican candidate, former state Sen. Jesse Haw, says on his campaign website that Nevadas liberal voting laws have made it easier to cheat. However, there is one pro-democracy Republican running: Sparks City Councilman Kristopher Dahir. Dahir has said he does not believe the 2020 election was stolen and has praised Cegavskes leadership. Theres also a competitive primary on the Democratic side between Cisco Aguilar, a staffer for former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and former state Assemblywoman Ellen Spiegel.

These are four of the biggest secretary of state races in which democracy is on the line in 2022. But there are a couple of dark-red states where the Republican primary (as the de facto general election) could have huge consequences for democracy as well. The incumbent secretaries of state of both Idaho and Alabama are retiring, and the primaries to replace them have become referenda on the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

For instance, in Idaho, there are three candidates vying to replace outgoing Secretary of State Lawerence Denney. Phil McGrane, who runs elections in Idahos biggest county, has said that Idahos elections are generally secure. But state Sen. Mary Souza has pointed to weaknesses in Idahos election laws, while state Rep. Dorothy Moon last year signed a letter calling for an audit into the election results in all 50 states along with the decertification of the 2020 election if necessary.

Likewise, the candidates to succeed Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill include one experienced election administrator and multiple pro-Trump election deniers. Ed Packard, who worked in the secretary of states elections division for more than 24 years, maintains that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, whereas state Rep. Wes Allen supported Texass lawsuit to overturn the 2020 election and Alabama Auditor Jim Zeigler has said there is preliminary information to suggest there were strange voting returns in some counties.

They may not be responsible for the administration of elections, but as their states top lawyers, state attorneys general provide legal advice and representation for government agencies and officials, investigate crimes and otherwise work to ensure that the states laws are being enforced. In the past year, this has meant a lot of wading through and in some cases initiating claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

In total, weve identified five attorney general elections in which claims of election fraud have been a significant issue, ranging from Texas, whose attorney general led the charge to overturn election results, to Wisconsin, where neither Republican candidate has explicitly claimed that Trump won in 2020 but have nonetheless made election fraud a significant part of their platforms.

The most controversial state attorney general right now is likely Texass Ken Paxton, who is mired in election-related disputes as well as two different criminal investigations. As we said at the outset, Texas was at the forefront of attempts to overturn the 2020 election result, in large part thanks to Paxtons baseless lawsuit to block the results in four states Biden had won. Trump endorsed Paxton last July, but hes also praised Rep. Louie Gohmert, who filed his own lawsuit to overturn the 2020 election and is now challenging Paxton for attorney general. There are two other Republican candidates in this race: George P. Bush, the Texas land commissioner and son of 2016 candidate (and frequent Trump critic) Jeb Bush, and former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman. Bush is the only candidate to have rebuffed claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump; Guzman hasnt said anything publicly about it but has said she would welcome Trumps support.

But despite the scandals Paxton finds himself in he faces felony charges from a 2015 securities fraud case when he was a member of the Texas Legislature and is also the subject of a separate FBI investigation over allegations that he engaged in bribery and other crimes while attorney general the most recent polling of the race shows Paxton leading the pack, with 47 percent of the vote.

In Kansas, meanwhile, the attorney general election is wide open after incumbent Derek Schmidt decided to run for governor, creating an opening for one of the GOPs most vocal proponents of election fraud: former Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Notorious for a controversial law he championed as secretary of state that required residents prove their citizenship before registering to vote, Kobach is now mounting his third bid for statewide office despite two previous unsuccessful attempts he first lost to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly in the 2018 gubernatorial race and then lost to then-Rep. Roger Marshall in the 2020 Senate GOP primary.

Its likely Kobachs failure to win these recent elections that has attracted competition in this primary, despite his Trump bona fides. (He hasnt claimed the 2020 election was fraudulent, but he did write an op-ed in the conservative media outlet Breitbart in support of Paxtons lawsuit.) Meanwhile, both state Sen. Kellie Warren, who launched her campaign with a thinly veiled dig at Kobach, and former prosecutor Tony Mattivi are running against him. Neither Mattivi nor Warren have spoken publicly about whether they dispute the results of the 2020 election, instead focusing more on challenging the Biden administration on issues like vaccine mandates.

In Idaho, its a question of whether Republican incumbent Lawrence Wasden, who has defended the 2020 election result, will survive a primary challenge. Lawrence broke with over a dozen Republican attorneys general when he announced in December 2020 that he wouldnt be joining Texass effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election result. That, in turn, precipitated a primary challenge from attorney Art Macomber, who said he was inspired to run when Wasden didnt join the suit; Dennis Boyles, another attorney in the state; and former Rep. Ral Labrador, Wasdens only challenger with any political experience. But all of these challengers likely face a steep climb to the nomination Wasden is the longest-serving attorney general in Idahos history, having served for nearly 20 years. And with the exception of his first primary in 2002, hes handily defeated all subsequent opponents by double-digit margins. That said, both Labrador and Macomber have outraised Wasden, which is a favorable sign for their campaigns.

Meanwhile, in Michigan, its another case of a pro-democracy Republican pitted against proponents of the Big Lie in the GOP primary. At this point, however, polling shows incumbent Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel with a small lead over her two main Republican challengers, former Michigan Speaker of the House Tom Leonard and attorney Matt DePerno.

As is true in Michigans secretary of state election, GOP convention-goers will ultimately decide who the nominee is, not primary voters. And if Leonard wins the nomination, the 2022 election will be a rematch of 2018, which Nessel won by just 3 percentage points. He is also the only Republican running who has said there isnt any evidence that the election results were invalid. DePerno is polling worse against Nessel than Leonard, but its close, and his endorsement from Trump may sway some delegates. DePerno has also been a vocal proponent of the claim that Trumps election loss was fraudulent, even filing a lawsuit in Antrim County alleging that the voting machines used in the election were compromised (the suit was ultimately dismissed). Finally, state Rep. Ryan Berman is also running as a Republican who backs the Big Lie he signed onto a letter in late 2020 that raised allegations of election fraud and asked for an independent audit.

Another state that Democrats are defending is Wisconsin, where incumbent Democrat Josh Kaul faces two Republican challengers, who havent backed the Big Lie but who have still made election security a big part of their platforms: Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney and former state Assemblymember Adam Jarchow. Toney, for instance, has tried to build a name for himself as the district attorney who has prosecuted the most cases of election fraud in the state. (Toney has prosecuted seven of 10 cases, the most of any Wisconsin district attorney.) Meanwhile, Jarchow has attacked Kaul for insufficiently investigating allegations of election fraud, although he hasnt gone as far as to question the 2020 presidential result. Its early yet, but at this point both Jarchow and Toney are behind Kauls fundraising; Kaul had over $1 million ready to spend in his campaign account at the end of December, while Jarchow and Toney have each raised between $80,000 and $100,000.

But of course, these are only some of the highest-profile offices on the ballot in 2022 that could impact the 2024 election. Since its still early in the campaign, races for secretary of state and attorney general in other states could become hotly contested over the next few months. And a lot of the nuts and bolts of administering a free and fair election are hammered out on the county level, where there are countless more election officials getting elected this year. So while its frighteningly difficult to know how likely it is that the 2024 election will actually get overturned, its definitely possible that, after 2022, the pieces will be in place to do so.

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Democracy Is On The Ballot In These 11 Secretary Of State And Attorney General Elections - FiveThirtyEight

Has the unthinkable, the Swedish political scientist Bo Rothstein mused earlier this month, now entered the realm of real possibility? Could democracy in the United States be disappearing?

Millions of Americans are worrying about that same question and we have plenty of cause for worry, everything from gun-toting militias and the continuing dysfunction of an archaic constitutional order to brazen attacks on the impartiality of our election administrators.

Our overflowing list of dangers to American democracy now has another dagger: the private equity industry. New research out of the NYU Stern School of Business and CalTech vividly details how private equity greed grabs in the newspaper sector are eviscerating local news coverage, dumbing down our politics, and undermining our democratic future.

Private equity firms have emerged over recent years as a major player on Americas economic landscape. Private equity-owned companies currently employ nearly 12 million Americans. Overall, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project noted last October, private equity firms held less than $1 trillion in assets in 2004. In 2021, their assets totaled $7.5 trillion.

What exactly do private equity firms do? They typically take on debt to buy up companies and then shift responsibility for that debt to the companies theyve acquired. That, of course, puts pressure on the acquired companies to operate more efficiently, private equitys standard jargon for squeezing workers and shortchanging consumers.

That combination has helped turn private equity, observes the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, into a billionaire factory thats creating eye-popping wealth for the executives perched at its summit.

Between their yachts, mansions and private jets, the Project adds, these private equity executives live some of the lushest lives of anyone on the planet.

Progressive lawmakers in Congress last fall introduced legislation that targets the most glaring outrages in the private equity playbook. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a sponsor of that reform legislation, gave those outrages an apt rundown.

Private equity firms, she related, get rich off of stripping assets from companies, loading them up with a bunch of debt, and then leaving workers, consumers, and whole communities in the dust.

The Warren-backed bill, the Stop Wall Street Looting Act, would put private investment fund execs on the hook for the companies they control and empower both workers and the pensions funds that have billions invested in private equity deals. But this legislation has next to no chance of passage in the current Congress.

And that mean more rough times ahead for the industries where private equity has already established a major presence, industries like health care where private equitys rush to cash in has triggered fraudulent activity that includes pushing medically unnecessary services and filing claims for services not provided.

In a just-released new report, Private Equitys Dirty Dozen, the Public Accountability Initiative and the Private Equity Stakeholder Project expose how private equity kingpins like the Blackstone Groups Stephen Schwarzman are investing massively in oil pipelines, coal plants, and offshore drilling. These environmentally hazardous investments, the report points out, only add to the destruction and chaos private equity has created in the retail, restaurant, and prison industries.

But private equitys impact on democracy writ large, suggests the new research from CalTech and the NYU business school, may be even more insidious than the profiteering on display in all these individual economic spheres.

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From the Kingpins of Private Equity, A New Dagger to Democracy - Inequality.org

"Local and regional self-government with elected democratic institutions and a strong civil society are the basis of a pluralistic society, based on democracy, human rights and the rule of law. The Council of Europe and the European Union share these values and cooperate at different levels", Othmas Karas, First Vice-President of the European Parliament, and Andreas Kiefer, Secretary General of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe confirmed when meeting in Strasbourg on 17 February 2022.

Listening carefully to the citizens and giving them real ownership is always the best possible way of doing politics. The roots of European democracy are in our regions and municipalities. We stand ready to support democratic initiatives on regional and local level. They can provide very valuable input for our work in the European Parliament which is the directly elected Chamber of the people in the European Union. I am committed to position the European Parliament as the voice of the needs and concerns of the European citizens and I am happily looking forward to a fruitful cooperation, said Karas.

Andreas Kiefer welcomed the adoption of the European Parliaments Resolution on the annual report 2021 on human rights and democracy in the world and the European Unions policy on the matter, which "calls on the Commission to increase re-granting mechanisms within the EUs democracy support programmes in order to bolster bottom-up approaches to democracy support and ensure that smaller initiatives at a regional or local level can also benefit from EU support". This showed the profound understanding of the European Parliament for the support of grassroots democracy, to which the Congress contributes with EU-co-funded cooperation activities on the ground, currently in the South-Med IV programme and previously also in Council of Europe member States. The Secretary General of the Congress expressed hope that this EP-resolution would contribute to a stronger EU support for local and regional democracy initiatives in future programme cycles.

The cooperation between the EU and the Council of Europe takes place at different levels. The Congress mainly works with the Committee of the Regions. Like other Council of Europe monitoring bodies, the Congress provides input from its monitoring and election observation reports to the progress review reports of the Commission on candidate countries. Operationally the Congress implements projects with local and regional authorities and their elected leaders in the framework of Council of Europe Action Plans.

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Joint commitment to strengthen grassroots democracy and civil society: meeting of Othmar Karas and Andreas Kiefer in Strasbourg - Council of Europe

Empty ballots are missed opportunities, and a race of any kind is meaningless without contestants in it. Thats why we want to applaud all the candidates whove entered the ring for election in 2022 so far. If you really want change in your community, local government is probably the best place to start. Government bodies and local officials craft policies that ripple throughout the community for generations, and many of the people vying to represent us today will make decisions that have a lasting impact on us later.

Just look around Routt County today, and youll see some of the decisions made years or decades ago at play. We talk about housing a lot, but it is only one of the issues that needs to be addressed. Public safety, land-use planning, development, recreation, transit and the local business environment theres no shortage of work ahead, and we hope there wont be a shortage of people who step up to do it.

Looking at the cost-to-benefit ratio, it can be hard to imagine why someone would want to get into public service. The private sector usually provides higher pay, shorter hours and easier interactions with the public. In fact, many of our elected officials do it for little to no pay at all. Hard choices and public ridicule are around almost every corner, and putting yourself out there in the public sphere takes courage.

But its that courage that gives voters have options to pick from, and there is no substitute for a robust lineup of candidates who are deeply invested in our success.

To make a good candidate, someone doesnt need to have lived here their entire life, but they should to be committed to our future. Institutional knowledge, government know-how and a historical reference are all strong qualities in leadership, but fresh ideas and new energy can be amazing catalysts in the community, too. We think a healthy democracy thrives on all these qualities, and that is more likely to happen with good competition in the election.

Most importantly, we want to see public officials who are engaged in the community and prepared to do the hard work that comes with it. The best public servants are those who do their research and commit themselves to finding solutions. Theyre not someone who just shows up and votes. The most productive elected officials can lose a vote, come back to the discussion and contribute to the mission, even if they disagree with the direction thats been chosen by the group.

To their core, a good candidate needs to embrace what it means to be a public servant and exemplify the fortitude necessary for this kind of work. While they might not see financial rewards, being a part of the decision-making process, having a hand in trying to better your community, is a reward in itself and one of the best and most admirable ways to get involved. Its tricky because we want candidates who try to represent the whole, but we also want people who are true to themselves and their beliefs.

Without endorsing any candidates, we want to tip our hats to everyone whos entered a race so far. Its nice to see candidates whove previously served in other roles and are looking to take new leadership positions. Its also great to see new faces who are making their first run at public office. Whether a candidate is an incumbent or newcomer, a longtime local or new to the scene, their presence in the public discourse only serves to strengthen our democracy.

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Our View: Democracy doesn't exist without the people who are willing to run - Steamboat Pilot & Today

Think of it like farming. Planting the seeds is like establishing a democracy. But for democracy to function you have to till and fertilize the soil, erect fences, pull up weeds, prune the early growth. The founders knew that democracy is not natural. It takes a lot of cultivation to make democracy work.

American foreign policy had a second founding after World War II. For much of our history Americans were content to prosper behind the safety of the oceans. But after having been dragged into two world wars, a generation of Americans realized the old attitude wasnt working any more and America, following the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, would have to help build a liberal world order if it was to remain secure.

The postwar generation was a bit like the founding generation. Its leaders from Truman to George F. Kennan to Reinhold Niebuhr championed democracy, but they had no illusions about the depravity of human beings. Theyd read their history and understood that stretching back thousands of years, war, authoritarianism, exploitation, great powers crushing little ones these were just the natural state of human societies.

If America was to be secure, Americans would have to plant the seeds of democracy, but also do all the work of cultivation so those seeds could flourish. Americans oversaw the creation of peaceful democracies from the ruins of military dictatorships in Germany and Japan. They funded the Marshall Plan. They helped build multinational institutions like NATO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund. American military might stood ready to push back against the wolves who threatened the world order sometimes effectively, as in Europe, oftentimes, as in Vietnam and Iraq, recklessly and self-destructively. America championed democracy and human rights, at least when the Communists were violating them (not so much when our dictator allies across, say, Latin America were).

Just as Americas founders understood that democracy is not natural, the postwar generation understood that peace is not natural it has to be tended and cultivated from the frailties of human passion and greed.

Over the past few generations that hopeful but sober view of human nature has faded. Whats been called the Culture of Narcissism took hold, with the view that human beings should be unshackled from restraint. You can trust yourself to be unselfish! Democracy and world peace were taken for granted. As Robert Kagan put it in his book The Jungle Grows Back: We have lived so long inside the bubble of the liberal order that we can imagine no other kind of world. We think it is natural and normal, even inevitable.

If people are naturally good we no longer have to do the hard agricultural work of cultivating virtuous citizens or fighting against human frailty. The Western advisers I covered in Russia in the early 1990s thought a lot about privatization and market reforms and very little about how to prevent greedy monsters from stealing the whole country. They had a nave view of human nature.

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Opinion | The Dark Century: Why Is Liberalism in Decline? - The New York Times