In 2006, SoS Project donors helped elect reform candidates in 5 key battleground states - Ohio, Nevada, Minnesota, Iowa and New Mexico. We raised over $200,000 in Ohio alone for Jennifer Brunner, replacing Ken Blackwell with one of the most progressive election officers in the nation. Dollar for dollar, the SoS Project was one of 2006's most effective political investments.

With your help, we can continue our winning streak in 2008. Click here to visit our Act Blue donation page. Potential donors should know that the SoS Project's startup and overhead costs are already fully funded, and the principal organizers are volunteers. So your contributions go directly to targeted races and expenditures in critical states.

We seek donations to our SoS Strategic Fund for three purposes:

1. to establish state political committees that will conduct innovative independent expenditure campaigns.


2. to build a reserve that can be deployed, where legally permissible, to benefit the races where it will matter most in the hectic final days before the election.


3. to support spreading the story to other donors through paid online marketing and activism campaigns.

The Secretary of State Fund, a non-federal 527, can accept unlimited contributions.

We're also working to eliminate one of the darkest corners of Rove's legacy -- stolen elections. Remember, the U.S. Attorneys scandal happened because Rove asked Republican appointees to shut down minority voter registration drives and disenfranchise voters. There is a way to stop his voter suppression tactics -- by electing reform-minded Secretaries of State to run fair, clean elections.

In 2006, our community of donors gave over $500,000 to seven Secretary of State races. We won 5 of those 7 campaigns. The 2008 elections will be dramatically different because of our success.

If you want to help dismantle Karl Rove's legacy of voter suppression, consider supporting our candidates with a contribution. For Rove, clean elections may be an even worse punishment than jail!

Click here to sign our petition calling for Congress to hold Rove in contempt and send him to jail.

Some background:

In 2004, Justice Department lawyers started getting strange instructions from Washington -- crack down on voter registration drives in urban areas. The idea was to harass progressive organizations and keep poor and minority citizens from getting to the polls.

Many Justice Department lawyers, Republicans and Democrats alike, balked at these unscrupulous orders. They refused to carry out a partisan witch hunt. In return for their disobedience, Washington started cracking down on THEM -- firing a host of them and passing up others for promotion, in what came to be known as the U.S. Attorneys Scandal.

And who gave the vote-suppression orders in the first place? A long trail of evidence indicates that Karl Rove cooked up and executed the whole scheme. To uncover the truth, the House of Representatives launched an investigation, and asked Rove to testify. He has repeatedly disobeyed Congress's subpoenas, in violation of the law.

The House is now considering a measure to hold Rove in contempt of Congress. If found guilty, he could go to jail. By holding Rove in contempt, we'll send a loud and clear signal to all Bush's cronies -- America's elections must be free and fair. Voter suppression will not be tolerated.

Join the hundreds of thousands who are calling on the House to take a stand against Rove and his dirty tricks.

One chronic problem that all Secretaries of State face is how to staff their elections. Typically, pollworkers are underpaid, undertrained and overworked. Not exactly a formula that attracts new talent. And though pollworkers are at the front lines of protecting votes and facilitating honest elections, there have been few coordinated efforts to recruit competent folks to their ranks (one of the few is Pollworkers for Democracy -- check it out here).

To combat this problem, SoS Carnahan is freeing up $500,000 of federal money to train a new generation of student pollworkers. (See the full story in the Columbia Tribune). This doesn't cost Missouri a dime; the money was already alloted from federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funds. Using HAVA money to train students -- a young, energetic, technologically-oriented demographic -- will go a long way to helping Missouri make sure that everyone's vote is counted in 2008. Carnahan should be loudly applauded, and financially supported, for her prescient decision.

Perhaps the most telling quote in the Columbia Tribune article is this: "Carnahan anticipates that in the general election, 80 percent of the state's registered voters may cast ballots." Getting to 80% turnout would be, well, spectacularly record-breaking. Pollsters and political scientists would probably disagree that Missouri can reach those heights. And yet, instead of planning modestly and risking election day disasters -- not enough pollworkers, not enough ballots, not enough machines -- Carnahan has wisely embraced the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared. More Secretaries of State should follow her lead.

"With millions of new voters heading to the polls this November," the article starts, "election officials and voting monitors [fear] long lines, stressed-out poll workers and late tallies on Election Day." Among the potential problems: New voting technologies, changing election rules, and, sadly, not enough ballots.

The truth is, most voting problems can be solved by good Secretaries of State. Printing enough ballots, training enough poll workers and ordering reliable, hacker-proof elections machines isn't rocket science. Unfortunately, if a Secretary of State wants to suppress the votes of young people, African Americans, or low income folks -- like Ohio's Ken Blackwell did in 2004 -- he or she can simply not try very hard to fix those voting problems. Or, even worse, fix them in selective polling places (read: affluent suburbs).

Here at the SoS Project, we're proud to see one of our star 2006 candidates, Jennifer Brunner, taking a strong stand against these kinds of problems. Another passage from the Times article:

Although most of the 30 states with touch-screen machines still do not plan to provide backup paper ballots, others, including Ohio, will do so for the first time in a presidential election. In 2004, hundreds of voters in Knox County, Ohio, many of them Kenyon College students, had to wait more than nine hours after one of the two voting machines at their polling place just off campus broke down. There were reports of lines where the wait was several hours long in at least three other counties.

"We refuse to let that happen," said Jennifer L. Brunner, the Ohio secretary of state, who plans to instruct all counties that use touch-screen machines to order backup paper ballots equal to at least a quarter of the votes cast there in the last presidential election.

That's the kind of problem-solving attitude we need from more Secretaries of State. We think our slate of candidates this year all fall squarely into that category.

If you have a minute, leave a comment on the New York Times site to thank reporter Ian Urbina for shining the spotlight on this pressing issue.

It's a simple strategy, one that Republicans have understood for decades. By getting GOP cronies elected as Secretaries of State in key battlegrounds, Republicans have seized unfair influence over American elections. Remember Katherine Harris?

The Secretary of State Project was formed in 2006 to undo this damage. It is working. Last cycle, we won 5 of our 7 elections. With your help, we can continue our winning streak in 2008.

At this point, we're looking for feedback from supporters across the country. We are currently tracking four important Secretary of State races, plus numerous county clerk races. But we don't have eyes and ears everywhere. If you know of an county clerk or SoS race we should target, we would like to hear from you. Email secstateproject - at - gmail - dot - com with your suggestions. We read every email, even if we don't have time to respond to all.

The Secretary of State Project was created by concerned citizens to provide an easy-to-use, low-cost vehicle for online donations to key Secretary of State races.

Becky Bond works for a socially progressive mobile telephone company based in San Francisco. She serves on the board of the New Organizing Institute.*

Tate Hausman is a progressive campaign manager based in New York. He has worked on two Congressional campaigns and one gubernatorial campaign, a national youth voting PAC and has consulted for numerous progressive groups including SEIU and the League of Young Voters.*

Megan Hull was a Project Director for Democracy Reform at the Center for Civic Participation*. In 2004, she was a Co-Director of the coalition that investigated polling place problems and vote counting irregularities in Ohio and New Mexico.

Michael Kieschnick is a social entrepreneur based in San Francisco. He is also a board member of the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, the Ballot Initiatives Strategy Center Foundation and Sojourners, among other progressive organizations.*

*Organizational affiliation listed for identification purposes only.

Contact us by sending an email to secstateproject - at - gmail -dot - com.

Donation Technology

ActBlue allows individuals, local groups, and national organizations to fundraise online for the Democratic candidates of their choice. Since June 2004 ActBlue has sent $7.2 million to over 500 Democratic candidates and committees.

In 2006, SoS Project donors helped elect reform candidates in 5 key battleground states - Ohio, Nevada, Minnesota, Iowa and New Mexico. We raised over $200,000 in Ohio for Jennifer Brunner alone, replacing Ken Blackwell with one of the most progressive election officers in the nation. Dollar for dollar, the SoS Project was one of 2006's most effective political investments.

With your help, we can continue our winning streak in 2008. Click here to visit our Act Blue donation page. Potential donors should know that the SoS Project's startup and overhead costs are already fully funded, and the principal organizers are volunteers. So your contributions go directly to targeted races and expenditures in critical states.

We seek donations to our SoS Strategic Fund for three purposes:

1. to establish state political committees that will conduct innovative independent expenditure campaigns.


2. to build a reserve that can be deployed, where legally permissible, to benefit the races where it will matter most in the hectic final days before the election.


3. to support spreading the story to other donors through paid online marketing and activism campaigns.

The Secretary of State Fund, a non-federal 527, can accept unlimited contributions.

Building on our successful model in 2006, the SoS Project is strategically focusing on a handful of key races this year - including county-level races. Our goal is to ensure fair, clean elections in 2008 and beyond.

There are two states we are targeting with open races for Secretary of State in 2008: Oregon and West Virginia. In Oregon, Democrat Kate Brown is running against GOP nominee Rick Dancer. In West Virginia, Natalie Tennant won the Democratic primary on May 13, despite being outspent 6 to 1 by her competitor. She is now fighting for the seat currently occupied by Betty Ireland, a partisan Republican who is currently working hard to oppose Election Day Registration.

In Montana, Democrat Linda McCulloch is trying to unseat ultra-conservative Brad Johnson. Johnson has been involved in an attempt by conservatives to rollback the state's Election Day Registration laws.

We are also working to protect the seat of a progressive Secretary of State in the key battleground state of Missouri. Democrat Robin Carnahan is a strong reformer who should win reelection. But given the importance of a fair election in Missouri, we need to be vigilant in this state.

Not all the action is happening at the state level. This year, the Secretary of State Project will also help elect reform-minded Democrats to key county-level posts in battleground states. A number of stark examples from 2004 and 2000, like Cuyahoga Co. in Ohio and Broward Co. in Florida, prove that manipulative county-level elections officials can exert a tremendous amount of influence over their results. Removing Republican operatives in three or four key counties could have a profound effect on the election. County-level targeting will be announced soon.

If you have suggestions about what 2008 races we should get involved in, email us at secstateproject - at - gmail - dot - com.

In 2006, the Secretary of State Project raised over $500,000 and helped elect five reformers in key battleground states. Dollar for dollar, our model was one of the most effective political investments of the cycle.

Thanks to SoS Project donors, Ohio's 2008 presidential election will be run by Jennifer Brunner, not the Cheney/Bush crony who was on the brink of buying the election. Not only did we contribute over $167,000 directly to the Brunner campaign, we also spent over $30,000 in a highly targeted, independent expenditure campaign that focused on reaching Ohio college students and unmarried women voters.

Also thanks to SoS Project donors, Minnesota's Mark Ritchie- a true champion for democracy - was able to defeat a two-term incumbent republican by less than five points. We helped close the gap and make the difference with cable television ads targeting women and seniors.

We also scored an important victory for Mary Herrera in New Mexico. Secretary of State Project contributors provided her with more than 10% of her budget, and our strategic fund put statewide radio ads on the air. Our help also propelled Nevada's Ross Miller and Iowa's Michael Mauro to victory.

Despite a hard fought campaign, our candidate Carmella Sabaugh lost to incumbent Terri Lynn Land in Michigan. In Colorado, our candidate Ken Gordon lost a very close race, in part because of widespread voting problems in Denver - more proof that we need clean Secretaries of State who will protect elections.

Read below for a final vote tally and a personal thank you message from 2006 SoS Project candidates.

She campaigned on a platform that included making it easier for students to vote, increasing citizen participation in the pollworker program and encouraging peer-to-peer get out the vote programs.

A former television news anchor, Tennant beat out Senate Majority Leader Joe DeLong, even though he outspent her $263,528 to $41,684 (according to the latest campaign finance reports).

She faces Charles Minimah, the republican nominee, in the general election. Minimah was unopposed in the primary.

If Tennant is elected, she will replace Republican Secretary of State Betty Ireland who decided not to run for another term. Ireland is currently working hard to oppose Election Day Registration in West Virginia.

CLEVELAND (AP) - The elections board in Cuyahoga County says a hand-count audit of votes from the presidential primary matches the results from scanned paper ballots.

A sample of 30,000 paper ballots from 99 precincts were hand-counted by teams composed of Republicans and Democrats last week.

Board of Elections Deputy Director Pat McDonald said Monday that the voluntary audit was part of a pilot program of Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to help determine consistency and performance of high-speed optical scanning.

Cuyahoga County switched to high-speed optical scan from touch-screen electronic voting for the March 4 primary.

It was SoS Brunner who required Cuyahoga County to switch from DREs to optical scan ballots. Finally Cuyahoga County can count.

Who will be affected? Poor and older voters who do not have drivers licenses. Young people. Minorities. What's worse, now that the Supreme Court has approved Indiana's ID law, Republicans will try to pass similar laws in other states. This will help them game elections by suppressing the vote of some of our most vulnerable citizens.

What does this have to do with Secretaries of State? One of the most vocal champions of requiring voters to show photo ID; is Indiana's Republican Secretary of State Todd Rokita. In 2005, he helped pass the voter ID bill that made its way to the Supreme Court. He's also the president of the National Association of Secretaries of State.

As an influential Republican operative, Rokita's Supreme Court victory may lead to a wave of similar laws in other states. If passed before the 2008 election, new photo ID laws could even deliver a decisive margin in the 2008 presidential race.

Once again, the GOP has shown its command of an immutable political truth - he who controls the machinery of elections can control the outcome of elections. It's time for progressives to fight back.

Our efforts ensured that Democrats dedicated to clean elections became the chief elections officers in the following states: Iowa, Ohio, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico. Our candidates lost in Colorado and Michigan.

>Did our work make a difference? Take Jennifer Brunner, for instance, our winning candidate for Ohio Secretary of State. We raised over $200,000 for Brunner, helping her replace Ken Blackwell. This equaled nearly 10 percent of her budget and close to the $220,000 fundraising advantage she achieved over her Republican opponent. Since taking office, Brunner has:

• Fired the corrupt Cuyhoga County election board that botched the 2004 and recount

• Replaced Cuyahoga County's DREs with paper ballot machines

• Made it possible for any Ohio voter to request a paper ballot in the 2008 election

• Ordered Ohio's public universities to provide utility bills for all students – an easy form of ID to make sure students are not turned away from the polls as they were in 2004

Having proven in 2006 that the SoS Project model works, we are looking to build on our success by supporting candidates committed to reform in 2008. Our targeting is still in process, but we are monitoring races in Oregon, Missouri, Washington, Montana and West Virginia. We are also researching a few county election official races in 2008 battleground states.

We invite suggestions for additional races of interest. Send us an email with your ideas to secstateproject-at-gmail-dot-com.

In Kentucky, despite a big win for new governor Steve Bashear, Democratic Secretary of State candidate Bruce Hendrickson went down 42 to 57. Incumbent and now two-term Secretary of State Trey Grayson is a rising Republican star. Had Kentucky Democrats fielded a progressive, reform-minded candidate for the office, Trey Grayson might have lost his office on the coattails of a sweeping victory for Steve Bashear.

In Mississippi, Republican Delbert Hosemann easily cruised to victory over Democrat Rob Smith. Hosemann has listed voter ID as one of the "reforms" he wants to bring to Mississippi elections.

SOS Project declined to make endorsements in either race, absent candidates with strong agendas for progressive election reform. This points to the importance of primaries -- we can't win these offices if we don't have candidates who can restore the public's faith in free and fair elections and attract the support of progressive donors and activists.