Republican candidates who echoed false allegations about election fraud that propelled Joe Biden to the US presidency two years ago have been defeated in state contests for secretary of state — the figure responsible, among other things, for organizing presidential elections locally.
The most recent defeat came in Nevada, where projections show Republican Jim Marchant lost to Democrat Cisco Aguilar. Marchant, a former state representative, said during the campaign that if he and other like-minded secretaries of state were elected, Donald Trump would return to the White House in 2024.
He was a favorite in the race for the post and had said that had he been secretary of state in 2020, he would not have confirmed Biden’s local victory. After being elected, Cisco Aguilar said that his victory is yet another proof that Americans are fed up with electoral denialism.
In a similar vein, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday that his party won because voters are tired of the violent political rhetoric of members of the Republican Party. “We were on the verge of an autocracy, but the American people pulled us back.”
Other defeats by electoral deniers were recorded in Arizona and Michigan. In the first, Democrat Adrian Fontes defeated Republican Mark Finchem, who participated in a January 6, 2021, march that preceded the invasion of the Capitol, the seat of the US Legislature, in the biggest recent attack on the country’s democracy.
In Michigan, Democrat Jocelyn Benson was re-elected secretary of state, defeating denier Kristina Karamo. “This is a victory for truth, facts and democracy,” she wrote on social media. “Just like in 2020, democracy prevailed in 2022 against those who try to destabilize it from within.”
On the other hand, however, the state of Indiana saw the electoral denialist triumph with the victory of Republican Diego Morales against Democrat Destiny Wells.
In all, 27 state secretary of state seats were up for grabs in the midterms, the midterm elections in the US that took place last Tuesday (8). The election also renewed 35 of the 100 Senate seats, all 435 House seats, 36 state governors and 30 state attorney general seats.
The position of state secretary of state has great relevance, since in the US there is no federal authority that defines the rules of the election, as in Brazil with the TSE (Superior Electoral Court). Thus, it is up to the state secretaries of state to define the details.
The role of the Federal Elections Commission ends up being restricted to the inspection of campaign accounts, with the voting scheme defined by the states — and which can vary drastically from one place to another.
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