iVote, a voter advocacy group backed by Hillary Clinton, is gearing up to spend $5 million to elect Democratic secretaries of state during the 2018 midterm elections, Washington Post reported Thursday.
All but three states have a secretary of state tasked with administering elections and maintaining election results for their respective states. Republicans currently hold 28 seats, while Democrats hold only 17 seats.
Ellen Kurz, the founder and president of iVote, told The Post that Democratic electoral success hinges on the party’s ability to regain control of the position in swing states.
“Republicans have understood the importance of the office,” Kurz told The Post. “There isn’t a single Democratic swing state secretary of state. And dozens of states have taken away opportunities to vote, purged voter rolls and disenfranchised certain voters every year.”
In the upcoming midterm elections, iVote will set their sights on supporting Democratic candidates for secretary of state in seven swing states: Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio.
New Mexico is the only state on iVote’s docket with a sitting Democrat secretary of state.
“In these contested states — except Iowa, where it’s students they are after — there are great numbers of people of color,” Kurz said. “These are the people that Republican campaigns target to stop certain people from voting.”
The group said Wednesday on Twitter the race for Michigan’s secretary of state is one of the most important in the upcoming elections, appearing to suggest that if a Democrat held the seat in 2016, President Donald Trump wouldn’t have won the state.
“Remember how Trump won Michigan by 10k votes?” the group tweeted. “Since then, a whole host of voting irregularities have been discovered, especially in Democratic areas–from missing ballots to machines breaking down to a suspicious number of ballots that didn’t record a vote for president.”
An investigation into alleged voter irregularities in Michigan during the 2016 elections found no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
It’s unclear who is funding iVote’s $5 million campaign. The announcement comes one month after Clinton announced her new Super PAC, Onward Together, would be lending its support to iVote.
The organizers at @iVoteFund worked with partners on the ground to get automatic voter registration on the ballot in Nevada.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) December 22, 2017
Democratic Super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, chaired by longtime Clinton ally David Brock, was iVote’s largest donor in the 2016 elections, giving $125,000 to help the group’s automatic voter registration efforts.
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