With dally reports of Republicans trying to co-op election operations around the country?
Democrats have started to work on recruiting and electing local officials to counter terror the Republican efforts…
A Democratic candidate recruiting group is pitching donors on an ambitious three-year program to find, train and support 5,000 candidates for local offices in charge of election administration, a sprawling national effort intended to fight subversion of future election results.
The program would recruit candidates in 35 states for everything from county probate judges in Alabama to county clerks in Kansas and county election board members in Pennsylvania — all offices that handle elections and will be on voters’ ballots between now and 2024. Spearheading the effort is Run for Something, a Democratic group that launched soon after Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory to recruit candidates for local elections. Now, the group plans to raise $80 million over the next three years for this push, which would include at least a hundred staffers to support those candidates in-state, according to details and donor memos…
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“Election subversion in 2024 is not going to be a mob storming the Capitol, it’s going to be a county clerk in Michigan or a supervisor of elections in Florida who decides to fuck the whole thing up,” Litman said. “The only way to make long-term democracy protection is by electing people who will defend democracy.”
The program will include every state where election administrators are themselves elected by voters. It represents one of the boldest organized attempts to put Democratic-backed candidates in these positions, in response to Trump’s endorsement for various election positions of followers who subscribe to conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen. Other Republicans are organizing around these offices as well, including former Trump aide Steve Bannon, who has urged Trump backers and 2020 election deniers on his podcast to get involved in party politics and “take this back … precinct by precinct.”
Run for Something is working in coordination with other Democratic groups on “Clerk Work.” Partners include American Bridge, a Democratic group that compiles and shares opposition research, and Open Democracy PAC, a super PAC that’s spending on advertising to boost these candidates….