America’s Electoral Playbook: Changing the Rules of the Game

The chief election official in most states is the Secretary of State. This year, we are tracking the remarkable rise in fundraising the secretary of state elections. Across key battleground states like Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, contributions are three times higher than they were at this point in the 2018 cycle, and eight times higher than 2014. 

These state races are also becoming nationalized. In the past, they have typically been sleepy affairs, and candidates have mostly raised money from residents within their states. This year, we are seeing significantly more money flowing in from out-of-state, sometimes from big national donors.

As an example, Arizona State Rep. Mark Finchem (R) is running for his state’s secretary of state. His campaign sent an email announcing his bill to "decertify three 2020 county elections" in the state, and he has attracted over six times the number of donors than all the candidates in the state’s 2018 election. Two-thirds of Finchem’s donors live outside Arizona. In Michigan, out-of-state contributions to secretary of state candidates have soared to $475,000 so far this cycle, three-and-a-half times the amount at this point in 2018 and 90 times that of 2014.

Overall, we found that the issue of election denial remains a central campaign topic for candidates on both sides of the aisle in these key election administrator contests, with some candidates questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election, and others highlighting such views as an existential danger to American democracy.

Now that the Democrats' voting rights bills failed in the Senate, is there anything that the Biden administration could do at the executive level? 

Voting rights and free and fair elections are under assault in the United States. State legislatures and the courts undermine our core democratic institutions when they create and uphold laws that limit access to voting and interfere with nonpartisan election administration. 

Congress clearly has the power to do so. We cannot stop fighting for broad voting rights legislation - we can’t safeguard democracy without federal action. It is one of the most important moral fights of our time in this country.

Having said that, there are smaller steps the Biden administration can take without Congress. The President can increase funding for elections within his budget, and fully engage federal agencies to promote fair elections by robustly enforcing voting rights, protecting election officials under threat, taking steps to safeguard our election infrastructure from cyberattack and expanding voter registration to clients of all federal agencies.

Indeed, President Biden initiated executive action last year when he signed an executive order promoting voting access and enlisting federal executive branch agencies "to expand access to, and education about, voter registration and election information, and to combat misinformation". Under this order, each executive branch agency has already devised a plan particular to its own programs, and there are also specific efforts targeting access for voters with disabilities, active duty military and overseas citizens, eligible individuals in federal custody and Native Americans. 

More must be done to protect election officials, one in three of whom reported feeling unsafe because of their job last year. The Department of Justice’s task force to combat threats against election workers has made two arrests since its formation in 2021; the DOJ must continue to expand these efforts to protect public officials from the onslaught of harassment and threats. 

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency - an executive branch agency - should also expand its efforts to protect election officials, and our election infrastructure, from physical and cyber attacks. 

While far-reaching voting rights legislation remains the best option for strengthening our democracy, the steps outlined above can enact meaningful change. 

We hear a lot about Republicans passing restrictive voting laws in various states ahead of the November 2022 midterms and the 2024 election. What are, in your opinion, the most dangerous voting laws for American democracy in the upcoming 2022 and 2024 elections? 

The trend itself is alarming and exceedingly dangerous, and these laws often explicitly target communities of color. Despite significant gains in overall voter participation, the turnout gap between white and non-white voters is virtually unchanged since 2014. In fact, it has grown since its modern-era lows in 2008 and 2012. 

During the same period, racially discriminatory voter suppression entered a new era. After the 2010 elections - for the first time since the peak reached during the Jim Crow era - states across the country began to enact laws making it more difficult to vote. This wave of voter suppression was intertwined with race and the nation’s changing racial demographics. It was, at least in part, a backlash against rising turnout among communities of color contributing to the election of the nation’s first Black president.

The newest concern is legislation that enables partisan interference in election administration, part of a broader "election sabotage" movement that threatens to distort democratic outcomes.

Legislators in at least 17 states have introduced a long list of bills that permit partisan punishment of election officials and increase the power of partisan poll watchers. By imposing chilling criminal and civil penalties, as well as pointless restrictions, these bills are accelerating the mass exodus of experienced, professional election officials from their jobs, opening the door to further partisan influence in election administration.

Most worryingly, state legislators introduced at least 10 bills in seven states during the 2021 legislative session, which would have directly empowered partisan officials to change or overturn election results. A recently introduced bill in Arizona would allow the legislature to reject the results of an election on a post-election day special session. Legislators in Missouri and Nevada introduced similar bills last year, and Texas legislators introduced a bill that would have allowed individual judges to throw out election results if they perceived evidence of a certain number of supposedly illegally cast votes. While these most troubling bills have not been enacted, their introduction into state legislatures across the country reveals the increasing number of political leaders who are turning their backs on our democracy. 

In spite of all this, the American public remains committed to the principles of democracy. The biggest hurdle remains communicating the stakes of this fight, and why these actions by state legislatures to restrict voting rights, criminalize election officials and threaten nonpartisan election administration are attacks on democracy itself. The Brennan Center conducts many of our studies with this exact goal in mind: arming the public with the critical data they need to cast informed votes.

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