Lesson From Franken vs. Coleman: Know Your Secretary Of State

The controversy-riddled vote recount in the Minnesota Senate race between Democrat Al Franken and Republican Norm Coleman is shining a light on Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, the state’s chief election officer. Ritchie is chairman of the Minnesota Canvassing Board, which on Monday certified that Franken ~~stole~~ received 225 more votes than Coleman did.

Ritchie gave lots of credit for his 2006 election win to a liberal 527 group, the Secretary of State Project, which says its goal is to “ensure fair, clean elections” by replacing conservative secretaries of state with liberal Democrats. Fair+clean=liberals?! Ritchie gushed in this post on the SOS website:

“I want to thank the Secretary of State Project and its thousands of grassroots donors for helping to push my campaign over the top. Your wonderful support- both directly to my campaign and through generous expenditures by the strategic fund- helped me get our election reform message to Minnesota voters.”

The SOS Project says it spent a total of $500,000 in seven swing states in 2006 trying to get Democrats elected as secretaries of state. They were successful in all but two of those states-Michigan and Colorado, but they helped fund Democratic wins in Ohio, Nevada, Minnesota, Iowa and New Mexico.

In 2008, the group had a clean sweep in its targeted states, spending $280,000 to help elect Democrats in Montana, West Virginia, Oregon and Missouri, according to the watchdog group Center for Public Integrity. The flow of 527 money into these races highlights the need to depoliticize the office of chief election officials, said Robert Richie, executive director of Fair Vote, which advocates for election reform. Ritchie states the obvious-

“As long as there are elections for this office, there will be groups that will use every expense to try to elect the person who will do a better job–from their point of view. Voters have already made the decision that it should be political in most states. There is a tradition in other countries to establish election officials as civil servants beyond reproach.”

Er, shouldn’t ALL civil servants be beyond reproach? I know that’s probably a great punch-line in Washington, but that DOESN’T make it a bad idea. Interestingly, today’s surprise decision by Senate Democrats to open the door to seating Roland Burris as Illinois’ next senator seems to make it more difficult, not less, to follow suit with Al Franken.

That is because Democratic leaders made Burris’ claim on the seat contingent on his ability to secure a formal election certificate from the state of Illinois, a document Franken will not have until Norm Coleman’s election challenges in Minnesota have been exhausted. Both the Governor and the Secretary of State must sign the certificate.

Bottom line is, keep an eye on your state Secretary of State. They can do more than just misplace your corporate filings.

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