ERN in the News: From Brooks to Bangor

ERN in the Post-Election News — Summary:

• David Brooks cites our work on election deniers running for secretary of state on PBS NewsHour. 
• ERN opinion piece on the message from voters published in Talking Points Memo.
• Our call for secretaries of state running for office to recuse gets results in Washington.
• The Bangor Daily News editorializes in support of our position on recusal

With the dust now just about settled from the election, we wanted to share some encouraging coverage of ERN’s work from the past week. 

A widely reported angle on the results focused on the defeat of most election-denier candidates for secretary of state — and all of those running in swing states. For more than two years, ERN has been writing about the problems with, and solutions to, the secretary of state position. That work should translate soon into legislative action. In the meantime, it was encouraging to hear a reflection of our leadership in this area when New York Times columnist David Brooks cited our analysis during the PBS NewsHour last week (linked below, minute 11:25 ).

Beyond the welcome wins against denialism, the election showed that voters increasingly understand the dangers that come from our partisan system of election administration.

In an oped in Talking Points Memo, we highlighted two less publicized results that make the point: In Washington, Julie Anderson came close to unseating the incumbent Democratic secretary of state despite running without the backing of a major party in a solidly blue state. Anderson, who supports making elections for secretary of state nonpartisan, lost by four points, even while the state’s Democratic senator was re-elected by 15. And in Michigan, voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure, proudly supported by ERN, that, in addition to expanding voting access, aims to block partisans from using the certification process to cause chaos, as they tried to do in 2020.

Our pre-election call for secretaries of state to recuse themselves from certain duties in administering their own close races also gained attention. In a strong editorial, the Bangor Daily News cited our research finding that very few secretaries of state have voluntarily recused, and signed on to our push for states to require recusal.

As we’ve noted, our call for recusal also led the Washington secretary of state’s office to be asked about the issue by local media. Here’s the spokesperson’s response:

“When the Secretary is a candidate, the Assistant Secretary takes over election certification & recounts. Washington law does not require this delegation. The Office…follows this procedure to provide a public assurance of election integrity.”

Given how rare recusal has been, that’s a step forward. Of course, the details of how recusal should work in practice can sometimes be tricky, and each state may have its own approach, in keeping with existing rules and procedures. But to protect voter trust, it’s our hope that, when chief election officials are themselves candidates, recusal from certain duties will soon become the norm.

As we move past last week’s vote, we’re encouraged to see the growing awareness of an important reality: Even though we avoided a crisis this time, there’s still a lot of work to do to keep our elections free and fair.

That’s our focus as we look to the year ahead. And of course, we thank you as always for your support.