More On Jennifer Brunner- The Secretaries of State Project

jennifer Brunner is now running as the Democrat Candidate for Ohio's 2010 US Senate seat.

Steve
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SECRETARY OF STATE PROJECT (SOSP)


Major Introductory Resource:

SOS in Minnesota
By Matthew Vadum
November 7, 2008


Additional Resources:

States' Secretaries of State Are Tipping Balance of Power
By Ed Barnes
February 1, 2010

Soros Eyes Secretaries
By Matthew Vadum
December 4, 2009

Al Franken — Democrat from Acorn
By Investor's Business Daily
July 2, 2009

Secretary of State Watch
By Dan Pero
May 13, 2009

The Stealing the Election Project
By Fred Lucas
January 8, 2009

ACORN, Soros Linked to Franken Vote GrabBy David A. Patten
December 22, 2008

The Soros Connection in the Minnesota Senate Race Vote Count
By Ed Lasky
November 17, 2008

Questions Surround Role of Minnesota Secretary of State in Hotly Contested Senate Race
By FOXNews.com
November 14, 2008

Another ACORN Secretary of State in Minnesota Will Be Running the Coleman-Franken Recount
By Soren Dayton
November 7, 2008

Secretaries of State Give Dem Firewall
By Avi Zenilman
November 2, 2008

Project of the Democracy Alliance
Works to help Democrats get elected to the office of Secretary of State in selected swing, or battleground, states
Receives funding from Democracy Alliance members George Soros and Rob Stein


A project of the Democracy Alliance, the Secretary of State Project (SoSP) was established in July 2006 as an independent "527" organization devoted to helping Democrats get elected to the office of Secretary of State in selected swing, or battleground, states; these were states where the margin of victory in the 2004 presidential election (between George W. Bush and John Kerry) had been 120,000 votes or less.

The idea for SoSP germinated shortly after that 2004 election, when the group's Democrat founders blamed Kerry's defeat on then-Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican, who had ruled that Ohio (where Bush won by a relatively slim 118,599-vote margin) would not count provisional ballots -- even those submitted by properly registered voters -- if they had been submitted at the wrong precinct. Though the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ultimately upheld Blackwell's decision, SoSP's founders nonetheless received the ruling with the same bitterness they had felt regarding former Florida (Republican) Secretary of State Katherine Harris's handling of the infamous ballot recount in 2000 (when Bush defeated Al Gore in the presidential election). Moreover, SoSP's founders accused Blackwell and Republicans of conspiring to suppress Democratic voter turnout in Ohio. "We were tired of Republican manipulation of elections," said SoSP co-founder Michael Kieschnick, who also serves as President of Working Assets. "It seemed like lots of decisions were made by people who were pretty clearly political operatives."

To establish "election protection" against similar disappointments in subsequent political races, SoSP in 2006 targeted its funding efforts on the Secretary of State races in seven swing states -- Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Colorado, and Michigan. Democrats emerged victorious in five of those seven elections -- all except Colorado and Michigan. As USA Today reported at the time: "The political battle for control of the federal government has opened up a new front: the obscure but vital state offices that determine who votes and how those votes are counted."

In a 2008, pre-Election Day article assessing SoSP's overall strategy, Politico.com reported:

"In anticipation of a photo-finish presidential election, Democrats have built an administrative firewall designed to protect their electoral interests in five of the most important battleground states. The bulwark consists of control of secretary of state offices in five key states … With a Democrat now in charge of the[se] offices, which oversee and administer their state's elections, the party is better positioned than in the previous elections to advance traditional Democratic interests —such as increasing voter registration and boosting turnout — rather than Republican priorities such as stamping out voter fraud. Perhaps more important, in those five states Democrats are now in a more advantageous position when it comes to the interpretation and administration of election law — a development that could benefit Barack Obama if any of those states are closely contested on Election Day."

In addition to the aforementioned Michael Kieschnick, SoSP was co-founded by James Rucker (a former director of MoveOn.org Political Action and Moveon.org Civic Action) and Becky Bond (a young woman who today is affiliated with Working Assets, US PIRG, and the New Organizing Institute). Said Bond: "Any serious commitment to wrestling control of the country from the Republican Party must include removing their political operatives from deciding who can vote and whose votes will count."

According to political analyst Matthew Vadum, SOSP's founders and foot soldiers

"religiously believe that right-leaning secretaries of state helped the GOP steal the presidential elections in Florida in 2000 ... and in Ohio in 2004.... The secretary of state candidates [whom] the group endorses sing the same familiar song about electoral integrity issues: Voter fraud is largely a myth, vote suppression is used widely by Republicans, cleansing the dead and fictional characters from voter rolls should be avoided until embarrassing media reports emerge, and anyone who demands that a voter produce photo identification before pulling the lever is a racist, democracy-hating Fascist."

SoSP raised a total of $500,000 for the 2006 Secretary of State candidates whom it supported. Because few Americans realize the importance of the Secretary of State's duties, races for that office tend to draw fewer (and smaller) donations than do the more prominent races. Consequently, even a modest injection of cash from a small handful of generous donors can make an enormous difference in the comparative financial resources of rival campaigns, and thereby tip the scales decidedly in favor of the better-funded candidate.

When Jennifer Brunner defeated incumbent Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio in 2006, twelve of the eighteen individuals who contributed the maximum $10,000 to Brunner's campaign resided in states other than Ohio. (One of those donors, incidentally, was Teresa Heinz Kerry.) Said Brunner, "I received significant support from the SoS Project, which helped me toward the election."

Brunner went on to make her influence felt in the 2008 election cycle, when she ruled that Ohio residents should be permitted, during the designated early-voting period extending from late September to early October, to register and vote on the very same day. Citing the potential for voter fraud under such an arrangement, Republicans objected. But on September 29 of that year -- the day before early voting was scheduled to commence -- the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed Brunner's decision.

In a separate matter, Brunner sought to effectively invalidate a million absentee-ballot applications that Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign had issued. Each of those applications had been inadvertently printed with an extra, unnecessary checkbox, and Brunner maintained that if a registrant failed to check the box — even if he or she signed the form — the application could be rejected. On October 2, the Ohio Supreme Court overturned Brunner's directive on grounds that it served "no vital purpose or public interest."

Brunner's most noteworthy claim to fame took place in October 2008, when she refused to provide county election boards approximately 200,000 voter-registration forms in which the name did not match the driver's license or Social Security number.

Another 2006 beneficiary of SoSP support was Mark Ritchie, a former community organizer with close ties to ACORN, who defeated a two-term incumbent Republican in the race for Minnesota Secretary of State. Ritchie acknowledged his debt to SoSP when he said, "I want to thank the Secretary of State Project and its thousands of grass-roots donors for helping to push my campaign over the top." Other contributors to Ritchie's campaign included George Soros, Drummond Pike, Deborah Rappaport (wife of venture capitalist Andrew Rappaport), and Heather Booth.

Like Jennifer Brunner, Ritchie went on to play a significant role in a key state election two years later. In 2008 the conservative watchdog group Minnesota Majority exhorted Ritchie to conduct "a thorough review and verification of all voter-registration records," citing some 261,000 duplicative registrations and 63,000 voters listing invalid or nonexistent addresses. But Ritchie dismissed these pleas as efforts "to create a cloud over an election so people don't accept the outcome."

In Minnesota's 2008 election for U.S. Senate, incumbent Senator Norm Coleman, a Republican, finished 725 votes ahead of Democrat challenger Al Franken. But Franken refused to concede, and the thin margin of victory triggered an automatic recount. With Mark Ritchie presiding over the recount process during the ensuing weeks, Coleman's lead gradually dwindled due to a host of what journalist Matthew Vadum describes as a long series of "appalling irregularities" that almost invariably benefited Franken. A detailed account of these irregularities can be found here. By the time the recount (and a court challenge by Coleman) ended in April 2009, Franken held a 312-vote lead. On June 30, 2009, after the Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously rejected a Coleman lawsuit, the Republican officially conceded and Franken was declared the victor.

In 2008, SOSP supported Democratic Secretary of State candidates in Missouri, Montana, Oregon and West Virginia; all four Democrats won. Again SoSP realized a high return on a relatively small financial investment. As of September, the group had raised $280,000 for the campaigns it was targeting -- not a large sum by any means, but enough to have a profound effect on the lightly funded Secretary of State races.

Among the more notable contributors to SoSP are Democracy Alliance members George Soros, Rob Stein, Gail Furman, and Susie Tompkins Buell.


Special Report
SOS in Minnesota
By Matthew Vadum on 11.7.08 @ 6:07AM

As Democrats nationwide try to make the climb to a filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate by pursuing recounts, an outspoken ACORN ally presides over the tallying of votes in the still-unresolved Minnesota Senate race.

The fact that Mark Ritchie, a Democrat and former community organizer, largely controls the electoral process in the Land of 10,000 Lakes may be important.

That's because at press time incumbent Republican Norm Coleman led Democrat Al Franken by just 341 votes and the Democrats controlled 57 seats in the Senate, compared to the Republicans' 40. The Senate races in Alaska and Georgia also have yet to be resolved, though in both the Republicans are leading and are expected to win in the end.

The Minnesota seat is the only one that Democrats could try to steal. Every seat closer to 60 gives President-elect Barack Obama and Democratic lawmakers an opportunity to permanently alter America's political, economic, and cultural landscape.

Both Franken and Obama, by the way, were endorsed by ACORN Votes, ACORN's federal political action committee.

Minnesota's secretary of state isn't a Democrat by happenstance.

Ritchie, who defeated two-term incumbent Republican Mary Kiffmeyer in 2006, received an endorsement and financial assistance for his run from a below-the-radar non-federal "527" group called the Secretary of State Project. The entity can accept unlimited financial contributions and doesn't have to disclose them publicly until well after the election.

The founders of the Secretary of State Project, which claims to advance "election protection" but only backs Democrats, religiously believe that right-leaning secretaries of state helped the GOP steal the presidential elections in Florida in 2000 (Katherine Harris) and in Ohio in 2004 (Ken Blackwell).

The secretary of state candidates the group endorses sing the same familiar song about electoral integrity issues: Voter fraud is largely a myth, vote suppression is used widely by Republicans, cleansing the dead and fictional characters from voter rolls should be avoided until embarrassing media reports emerge, and anyone who demands that a voter produce photo identification before pulling the lever is a racist, democracy-hating Fascist.

The group was co-founded in July 2006 by James Rucker, formerly director of grassroots mobilization for MoveOn.org Political Action and Moveon.org Civic Action. "Any serious commitment to wrestling control of the country from the Republican Party must include removing their political operatives from deciding who can vote and whose votes will count," said another co-founder, Becky Bond, to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2006.

Its website claims, "A modest political investment in electing clean candidates to critical Secretary of State offices is an efficient way to protect the election." Indeed. Political observers know that a relatively small amount of money can help swing a little-watched race for a state office few people understand or care about.

The strategic targeting of the SoS Project yielded impressive results this year and in 2006.

Days ago, SoS Project-backed Democrats Linda McCulloch (Montana), Natalie Tennant (West Virginia), Robin Carnahan (Missouri), and Kate Brown (Oregon) won their races. Only Carnahan was an incumbent. The Center for Public Integrity reported two months ago that the group had thus far raised a mere $280,000 for the 2008 election cycle.

Talk about return on investment!

In 2006, along with Minnesota's Ritchie, SoS Project-endorsed Jennifer Brunner (Ohio), who last month defied federal law by refusing to take steps to verify 200,000 questionable voter registrations, trounced her opponent, 55% to 41%. Democrats supported by the group also won that year in New Mexico, Nevada, and Iowa. The group claims it spent about $500,000 in that election cycle.

In the election on Tuesday, Ritchie said his office "received no reports whatsoever of fraudulent voting occurring," but most news reports omitted the fact that a conservative watchdog group called Minnesota Majority repeatedly urged Ritchie to clean up the state's voter data. The group urged "a thorough review and verification of all voter registration records."

Minnesota Majority claimed last month that there were thousands of irregularities in voter lists, including 261,000 duplicative registrations and 63,000 voters listing an address that the post office reported was "non-deliverable."

Ritchie was dismissive.

"There is a new level of desperateness, a new level of intensity to the process that's saying, ‘This can't be right. There must be all these people illegally voting,'" Ritchie told Minnesota Public Radio Nov. 3. "It's to create a story to explain a political climate. It's to create a cloud over an election so people don't accept the outcome."

While running for office two years ago, Ritchie recited well-worn liberal talking points on the electoral process. "The only means we have of defending ourselves is the vote, and if you want to throw out or hold accountable leaders who are not doing what you want around [Hurricane] Katrina, or the Iraq war, the vote is your only mechanism. [...] When you begin to perceive that your vote is being manipulated, it's a sign of worry," he said.

So far in the Coleman versus Franken vote-tallying process Ritchie seems even-handed. He perhaps inadvertently likened the upcoming official recount to a funeral service that benefits the living because it forces them to accept the death of a loved one. "Recounts are for really the loser to understand and see and then believe that they in fact did not win the election and for their supporters to come to the same conclusion," he said.

Most media reports also leave out the fact that Ritchie has extensive ties to the controversial in-your-face direct action group, ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), whose employees have been implicated in electoral fraud time and time again.

In 2006, the Minnesota ACORN Political Action Committee endorsed Ritchie and donated to his campaign. According to the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, contributors to Ritchie's campaign included liberal philanthropists George Soros, Drummond Pike, and Deborah Rappaport, along with veteran community organizer Heather Booth, a Saul Alinsky disciple who co-founded the Midwest Academy, a radical ACORN clone. One article on Ritchie's 2006 campaign website brags about the fine work ACORN did in Florida to pass a constitutional amendment to raise that state's minimum wage.

It was revealed during a panel discussion at the Democratic Party's convention in Denver this summer that the Democracy Alliance, a financial clearinghouse created by Soros and insurance magnate Peter B. Lewis, approved the Secretary of State Project as a grantee. The Democracy Alliance aspires to create a permanent political infrastructure of nonprofits, think tanks, media outlets, leadership schools, and activist groups-a kind of "vast left-wing conspiracy" to compete with the conservative movement. It has brokered more than $100 million in grants to liberal nonprofits including ACORN. The aforementioned Pike and Rappaport, who gave money to Ritchie's campaign, are members of the Democracy Alliance.

According to IRS 8872 disclosure forms, the Secretary of State Project received donations from Democracy Alliance members including Soros, Rob Stein, Gail Furman, and Susie Tompkins Buell.

Ritchie said the recount won't get underway until the State Canvassing Board meets Nov. 18 to certify the U.S. Senate election results. Under state law, the five-member board will consist of Ritchie, two state district court judges he appoints to it, and two state supreme court justices.

As the politically astute Joseph Stalin once remarked, "The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."