Opinion by Shirley N. Weber and Jocelyn Benson
As the chief election officers in California and Michigan, we are charged with ensuring and protecting the votes of over 30 million Americans — roughly 20% of the total registered voters in our country. We work to make sure that every eligible citizen is registered, has the information they need to vote, has their vote counted correctly and can have rightly placed faith in a complex electoral process — one made more onerous by the continuing Covid-19 pandemic.
We join with thousands of elected and appointed local election officials to fulfill this mission. This is the charge of every secretary of state and state election official across the country.
With that in mind we pose this question: Who do you want running elections in your state? An election denier who refuses to acknowledge the will of the voters in 2020 and who was present during the tragic US Capitol insurrection in January 6 2021? A candidate who aims to rewrite the history of the 2020 election, falsely repeating debunked allegations that voting machines in Georgia flipped votes cast for former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden? Or would you prefer a civil servant and dedicated advocate for democracy committed to defending and strengthening the most fundamental American right?