The election deniers and anti-voting activists who want to run their states’ elections

Election deniers. Conspiracy theorists. Anti-voting activists. Big Lie true believers. 

By the time we hold our next presidential vote, they could be running our elections — including in some key swing states.

In Arizona, a GOP state lawmaker running for secretary of state was sanctioned by the state bar for his role in the infamous 2020 “kraken” lawsuits to overturn that year’s election. A candidate in Colorado’s secretary of state race says he only approves of electronic voting systems “to the extent that the electricity is used to turn on the lights in the building where humans count the ballots.” 

And in Georgia — where in 2020, President Donald Trump famously pressured the state’s chief elections official to “find” him the votes he needed to win — a parade of anti-voting candidates who have parroted Trump’s false elections claims are competing for the GOP nomination.

 In case there’s any doubt, secretaries of state have enormous power to shape election outcomes. They help implement rules that determine key issues of voter access — how easy it is to get a mail ballot, for instance — and in most states they play a major role in the counting and certifying process. A chief election official, especially in a swing state, who wants to put a thumb on the scale has huge opportunities to do so. And, given their records of embracing election lies, there’s reason to fear that some of these candidates could try to do exactly that — lending crucial support to Trump’s ongoing campaign to undermine fair elections.

Here are a few of the most worrying:

Alabama

Caroleene Dobson 

In Alabama, the sitting secretary of state, Wes Allen (R), is one of the country’s most conspiracy-driven anti-voting election chiefs. But Allen has his sights set on higher office — lieutenant governor — leaving his job open for 2026. 

Enter Dobson, a far-right attorney who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2024, said that she will “advocate for President Trump’s commonsense election reforms” as Alabama’s top elections official. But she doesn’t outline what, exactly, those reforms are — other than creating a special division within the secretary of state’s office to investigate voter fraud. 

On social media, she cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 election in the aftermath of the FBI’s Fulton County, Georgia raid: “Joe Biden won the state of Georgia by a margin of just 11,779 votes over President Trump in 2020,” she wrote. “If 315,000 votes were invalid… You do the math.”

Arizona 

Alexander Kolodin

Kolodin, a state representative who’s part of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus, is a notorious election denier in the Grand Canyon State. Kolodin was sanctioned by the State Bar of Arizona in 2023 for his role in various lawsuits trying to overturn the 2020 election — including one of the infamous “kraken” lawsuits filed by former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell. In the state legislature, Kolodin chairs the Select Committee on Election Integrity, where he pushed various anti-voting measures. 

Gina Swoboda 

As the former chair of the Arizona Republican Party, Swoboda pushed dubious claims of voter fraud and led her party’s legal battle to suppress voting rights — via lawsuits to purge voters and challenge the state’s Elections Procedure Manual. Swoboda also started the anti-voting group The Voter Reference Foundation, which boosted false claims of mass voter fraud. 

Arkansas 

Kim Hammer

Arkansas is another state with an open seat to fill in the 2026 election, after its current election chief, Cole Jester (R), announced he was running for commissioner of state lands this year. Hammer, a GOP state Senator since 2019, won the Republican primary nomination in March. 

In the aftermath of Trump’s second impeachment — over his instigation of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Hammer declared “war” on Democrats in a Facebook post. His comment followed weeks of promoting Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen. Since then, Hammer has pushed anti-voting and anti-democracy measures in the Arkansas Senate, including a bill to cut the state’s early-voting period. 

California

Don Wagner

Wagner, who currently serves on the Orange County Board of Supervisors, supports several anti-voting measures, including strict voter ID laws and cutting no-excuse absentee voting. 

Colorado 

James Wiley

After Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) announced that she would be running for attorney general this year, many candidates from the left and right jumped into the race to fill her shoes. Colorado’s primary isn’t until June 30, and there’s already a crowded field of contenders competing for the Republican nomination — with no clear front-runner. 

But one candidate that’s grabbed a lot of attention is Wiley, a libertarian who first gained notoriety when he jumped into a crowded congressional race to unseat Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) in 2023 in what he called a “campaign of vengeance.” He’s now running to be Colorado’s top elections chief, where, if elected, he plans to get rid of all voting machines. 

“I’m okay with electronic voting systems,” Wiley reportedly said. “To the extent that the electricity is used to turn on the lights in the building where humans count the ballots.”

Beyond that, Wiley is an election denier and anti-voting activist who has been a plaintiff in several election-related lawsuits against Griswold. He’s also a staunch supporter of Tina Peters, the former GOP Mesa County clerk who was convicted for her role in a 2021 voting system data breach scheme hatched by election deniers.

Georgia 

Vernon Jones

Few politicians have had such radical political transformations as Jones, who was a Democrat in Georgia’s House of Representatives from 1993 to 2001, and then again from 2017 to 2021, when he switched parties, ran for Congress, and dubbed himself the “Black Donald Trump.”

Jones’ political realignment started in the aftermath of the 2020 election, when he parroted Trump’s claims that the election was stolen. Since then, Jones has aligned himself closely with MAGA, and his secretary of state campaign platform mirrors that: a push for paper ballots over electronic voting systems, cut mail-in voting, and stricter voter ID laws.

Kelvin King

A longtime conservative activist in the Peach State, King has pushed bogus claims about the 2020 election, which his wife, Janelle, echoed as a member of Georgia’s State Election Board. King’s campaign platform includes anti-voting policies like switching from electronic voting to paper ballots and strict voter ID laws. 

Tim Fleming 

As chair of the Georgia General Assembly’s election procedures committee, state Rep. Tim Fleming (R) is leading the GOP’s push to pass new anti-voting laws ahead of the midterm elections. Fleming also sponsored an elections overhaul bill last year that sought to withdraw Georgia from the Electronic Registration Information Center — a nonpartisan voter registration accuracy organization — and ban absentee ballot drop-off the weekend before Election Day.

Indiana

Diego Morales

Morales, Indiana’s current secretary of state, is an election denier who campaigned as part of the “America First” coalition of election skeptics in 2022. Prior to running to be Indiana’s top elections official, Morales wrote an op-ed where he had “deep skepticism regarding the accuracy of the 2020 presidential election” and called the contest “a sham.”

As Indiana’s elections chief, he promoted a number of anti-voting measures, including limiting mail-in voting and increasing law enforcement at polling places. 

David Shelton

Shelton, a county clerk in Knox County, Indiana, is running to the right of Morales — no small feat considering Morales’ extreme anti-voting views and election denialism. But Shelton has the credentials: In an interview with local media he said, “[the presidential election] sure looked fishy to me. We all saw vote totals change in the middle of the night, with 100,000 votes cast at 3 a.m. for Bidden [sic]. That just doesn’t pass the smell test.”

Even though Shelton is way more of an election conspiracist than Morales, it’ll be tough for him to topple the incumbent elections chief. But Morales’ tough race won’t be the primary; early polling shows voters aren’t too fond of Morales and the Democratic candidate, Beau Bayh, has a big fundraising advantage.

Kansas 

Pat Proctor 

As chair of the Kansas State House Elections Committee, Rep. Pat Proctor (R) led a string of meetings to give a platform to election deniers and conspiracy theorists. Proctor has also been the driving force among the Kansas’ GOP lawmakers to eliminate the state’s three-day grace period for mail-in ballots. Last year, video of a private meeting leaked where Proctor said he wanted to gut early voting entirely and called pro-voting advocacy groups that were pushing against his policy proposals “bomb throwers in the election debate.”

Kansas’ current secretary of state, Scott Schwab, is running for governor. With an open seat and only one other candidate in the Republican primary — state Rep. Ken Rahjes (R) — Proctor has a decent shot at clinching the GOP nomination.

Michigan

Anthony Forlini

Forlini, who currently serves as Macomb County, Michigan Clerk, made headlines earlier this year when he made bold claims about Michigan’s voter rolls, alleging that an untold number of noncitizens were illegally registered to vote in the state. But the claims were misleading and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) — who’s running for governor this year — blasted Forlini for making conclusions based on misinterpreted and exaggerated data. 

“It’s not clear that the Macomb County Clerk looked at the data he’s citing with any level of rigor, and that’s what we are working with him to uncover and figure out,” Benson said at the time. 

It’s not the first time Forlini courted controversy in his clerk role. In 2022, Forlini was criticized for hiring a noted election denier who once live-streamed a protest outside Benson’s home. 

Forlini clinched the GOP nomination during a state convention earlier this month. The Democratic candidate will be picked in a similar fashion next week. 

Minnesota 

Wendy Phillips 

Phillips, a longtime Minnesota business owner, is running to be Minnesota secretary of state on a platform that mirrors the anti-voting wish list of the MAGA party: Proof of citizenship to register to vote, strict voter ID laws, ending no-excuse mail-in voting, replacing electronic voting machines with paper ballots, hand-counting ballots, and only holding elections on a single day. All policies that would stand to disenfranchise millions of voters. 

Phillips’ bid is a longshot as she’s gunning to unseat the state’s Democratic incumbent, Steve Simon (D), who’s established himself as one of the leading state election chiefs fighting against the Trump administration’s efforts to take over elections.

Nebraska 

Scott Peterson

Petersen, a businessman from Omaha, is a longtime member of the state’s Republican party, previously serving on the party’s executive committee. Since announcing his run to be Nebraska’s next elections chief, Peterson’s amplified conspiracies about the 2020 election — notably ones related to the FBI’s recent raid of a Fulton County, Georgia election hub.

“By the way, if another state steals elections … our vote doesn’t count as much, right?” Petersen said of the Fulton County raid.

Peterson’s platform includes support for a number of anti-voting policies that would disenfranchise voters, like strict voter ID laws.

Peterson’s bid is somewhat of a longshot, as he’s up against the state’s incumbent Republican secretary of state, Bob Evnen. 

Nevada 

Sharron Angle

Angle, a longtime local politician who was a member of the Nevada Assembly from 1999 to 2007, led an “election integrity” group during the 2020 election that filed numerous unsuccessful lawsuits to block the expansion of mail-in voting and certification of that election. Her campaign embraces a number of anti-voting measures, including voter ID, eliminating early voting and vote-by-mail, and implementing Trump’s unconstitutional executive order. 

Angle ran for U.S. Congress in 2006 and 2018, state Senate in 2008 and 2024, and U.S. Senate in 2010 and 2016. She lost all but one of those primary elections — her 2016 U.S. Senate run. She lost the general election, though, to former Sen. Harry Reid (D). Should she clinch the GOP nomination — a long shot considering her electoral history — she’ll be running against incumbent Sec. Cisco Aguilar (D).

Jim Marchant

This isn’t Marchant’s first rodeo running to be Nevada’s top elections chief. Back in 2022, Marchant — a Nevada politician who served in the state assembly from 2016 to 2018 — unsuccessfully ran for secretary of state, in a campaign focused on promoting Trump’s Big Lie and amplifying election conspiracy theories. Marchant has a deep history of QAnon ties to palling around with prominent election deniers like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. 

For Marchant’s latest campaign, he appears to be dialing down the conspiratorial rhetoric, but his anti-voting platform is nonetheless extreme: strict voter ID and proof of citizenship laws, replacing voting machines with paper ballots, precinct voting, and hand-counting ballots.

Marchant won his party’s primary election for secretary of state in 2022, but lost the general to Aguilar by about 2 percentage points, making him, once again, a formidable opponent in this election. 

Ohio 

Robert Sprague

Sprague, who currently serves as Ohio’s treasurer, is running on a campaign robust with “election integrity” policies aligned with the anti-voting right. He supports universal photo ID for voting, eliminating ballot drop boxes, and abandoning electronic voting machines in favor of paper ballots, among other restrictive measures. 

Ohio’s current secretary of state, Frank LaRose (R), is running for auditor. With the Republican primary a two-person race, Sprague has a good chance at clinching the nomination. 

Marcell Strbich

After retiring from a 20-year military career as an Air Force intelligence officer, Stribich pivoted to anti-voting activist in Ohio, where he has worked with GOP lawmakers to write voter suppression legislation. On his campaign website, Stribich said he wrote “first-in-the-nation legislation proposing military grade cybersecurity certification standards for reviewing ‘critical infrastructure’ voting systems,” along with state-level resolutions modeled after Trump’s anti-voting executive order to impose proof of citizenship requirements. 

Stribich has close ties with prominent election deniers. He’s a member of the Ohio Election Integrity Network — the local chapter of Cleta Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network — and regularly appears on far-right podcasts and networks like Stern American and Lindell TV. 

Stribich may not have the political experience to match Sprague, but his experience and association with anti-voting groups could boost his campaign in a state like Ohio.

South Dakota 

Monae Johnson 

As South Dakota’s chief elections official, Johnson has aggressively pushed for policies that disenfranchise voters — including strict voter ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements. In 2024, Johnson was criticized for removing 273 noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls without releasing any details about where they were registered, how they got onto the state’s voter rolls, or if they voted. When Johnson first campaigned for the position in 2022, she had the support of a well-known Minnesota election conspiracy theorist and later refused to say if former President Joe Biden won the 2020 election. 

Heather Baxter

Johnson’s being challenged from the right by state Rep. Heather Baxter (R). As a state lawmaker, Johnson has sponsored a number of anti-voting bills. Baxter’s campaign platform promises to align South Dakota’s electoral process “with President Trump’s platform on election integrity,” which includes implementing the orders in Trump’s various unconstitutional anti-voting executive orders. 

Baxter’s campaign is a longshot, considering Johnson’s running for reelection in a deep red state.