In the wake of the bitterly contested 2000 presidential election, where Florida's Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris became a lightning rod for accusations of partisan bias in certifying George W. Bush's victory, a new strategy emerged on the progressive left. Launched in 2006, the Secretary of State Project (SoSP) aimed to install "reform-minded" Democrats in these pivotal offices across battleground states. Ostensibly designed to safeguard election integrity and prevent repeats of Florida's chaos, the initiative quickly drew fire for what critics saw as a blatant attempt to stack the deck for one party.
By targeting the very officials responsible for overseeing voter registration, ballot counting, and certification, SoSP raised profound questions about the impartiality of American democracy. Fast-forward nearly two decades, and while the project officially folded in 2010, its tactics and alumni have left an indelible mark, fueling allegations of systemic corruption that some argue culminated in the most dishonest election in U.S. history in 2024.
The SoSP was no grassroots effort. Founded in July 2006 by progressive activists Becky Bond, Michael Kieschnick, and James Rucker—veterans of MoveOn.org and other left-leaning groups—it was bankrolled by a who's who of Democratic megadonors. George Soros contributed $750,000 through his Open Society Institute, while additional funds flowed from Democracy Alliance members like Pat Stryker, Rob McKay, and Susie Tompkins Buell.
This war chest targeted six battleground states where the 2004 presidential margin was under 120,000 votes: Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Ohio. The goal? Elect Democrats to the secretary of state (SOS) role, positioning them to "protect" elections from what backers called Republican voter suppression.
Proponents framed it as noble reform. After 2000's hanging chads and Harris' dual role as Bush campaign co-chair, progressives argued that partisan SOSs posed an existential threat to democracy. SoSP's website touted "fair, clean elections" as its mantra, emphasizing transparency and access.
Yet, from the outset, skeptics smelled a rat. A 2010 exposé by the American Patriots Commission lambasted SoSP as a "Soros-funded vehicle for corruption," accusing it of inverting the 2000 narrative: instead of preventing bias, it sought to embed it.
By pouring resources into SOS races—often low-profile contests overshadowed by gubernatorial or senatorial bids—SoSP exploited a vulnerability in the system, turning obscure offices into kingmakers.
The project's early wins were telling. In 2006, it helped unseat Republican incumbents in four states, including Minnesota's Mark Ritchie, a farmer and activist who edged out incumbent Mary Kiffmeyer by just 1.6%.
Ritchie, a SoSP darling, would later oversee the razor-thin 2008 U.S. Senate recount between Al Franken and Norm Coleman—a grueling seven-week saga involving 1,000 disputed absentee ballots. Franken's eventual 312-vote victory flipped Senate control to Democrats, a "political investment" that paid dividends, as critics quipped.
In Ohio, Jennifer Brunner's SoSP-backed ouster of Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell in 2006 allegedly opened the floodgates for voter irregularities, including a federal lawsuit by ACORN (a Soros-linked group) that forced laxer rules on provisional ballots.
These weren't isolated flukes. SoSP's playbook—coordinated funding, grassroots mobilization, and legal warfare—mirrored broader progressive strategies, blending with outfits like Project Vote and the ACORN network to challenge Republican election safeguards. Detractors argued this wasn't protection; it was preemption. By installing sympathetic officials, SoSP ensured that post-election disputes would tilt leftward, undermining the neutral arbiter role enshrined in state constitutions.
Corruption, in SoSP's case, wasn't about brown envelopes or ballot-stuffing scandals—though whispers of the latter persist in partisan lore. It was subtler: the slow poison of institutional capture. Secretaries of state aren't just administrators; they certify results, litigate challenges, and set rules for everything from voter ID to mail-in deadlines. When one party dominates these posts in swing states, the scales tip imperceptibly at first, then catastrophically.
Consider the funding trail. Soros' initial $780,000 seed money ballooned through Democracy Alliance, a consortium of over 100 wealthy liberals pooling $30 million annually for causes like SoSP.
This wasn't philanthropy; it was precision politics. In 2008, SoSP's influence rippled into Barack Obama's sweep of states like Montana, West Virginia, Missouri, Oregon, New Mexico, Nevada, and Iowa—many with freshly minted Democratic SOSs.
Critics, including the American Patriots Commission, decried this as "vote theft by proxy," where Soros' dollars bought not just candidates, but outcomes. "The SoSP equates Republicans with opponents of honest elections," the 2010 report charged, "using lawsuits and rule changes to manufacture chaos they then 'resolve' in their favor."
Even neutral observers noted the risks. Ballotpedia's archival entry on SoSP highlights its 527 statuses, allowing unlimited anonymous donations—a loophole that shielded donor intent while amplifying influence.
In 2010, amid a Republican wave, SoSP limped to partial success, re-electing California's Debra Bowen and Minnesota's Ritchie while losing five others.
By then, its website had vanished, and operations ceased. But the damage lingered. Alumni like Laura Packard, who helmed the 2010 push, migrated to sister groups, embedding SoSP DNA into the Democratic ecosystem.
This legacy of meddling bred cynicism. Republicans countered with the America First Secretary of State Coalition in 2022, explicitly modeled as a bulwark against SoSP-style tactics.
Yet, the left's edge persisted: in 2024, Democratic SOSs in key states like Michigan (Jocelyn Benson) and Pennsylvania (Al Schmidt, though a Republican, faced progressive pressure) were alumni or allies of the old guard, backed by Democracy Alliance remnants.
If SoSP's early years sowed seeds of doubt, 2024 harvested a bumper crop of deceit. The election, marred by unprecedented mail-in expansions, drop-box proliferation, and last-minute rule changes in blue-led states, echoed the project's original sin: weaponizing SOS authority for partisan gain. In Michigan, Benson—a SoSP ideological heir—oversaw a surge in absentee ballots that critics tied to "noncitizen voting" scandals, including a Chinese national's ballot counting amid lax verification.
Pennsylvania's fragmented certification process, influenced by progressive litigation legacies, delayed results and fueled "ballot stuffing" whispers in Philadelphia.
These weren't anomalies; they were evolutions of SoSP's blueprint. Post-2010, the project's spirit lived on in initiatives like Missouri's "Secretary of State Project alums" boosting Democratic turnout through targeted voter drives.
In battlegrounds, Democratic SOSs rejected hand-count audits and expanded no-excuse mail voting, measures decried as fraud enablers. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's 2025 probe into 33 noncitizen votes in 2024 underscored the vulnerabilities, tracing irregularities to states with SoSP-influenced rules.
The dishonesty peaked in outcome manipulation. Despite pre-election polls showing a toss-up, Kamala Harris' underperformance in urban strongholds—down millions from Biden's 2020 haul—sparked fraud theories, amplified by foreign actors like Russia and Iran peddling deepfakes of rigged Arizona counts.
Yet, bipartisan SOSs like Georgia's Brad Raffensperger affirmed integrity, calling the system "battle tested."
This rings hollow when viewed through SoSP's prism: officials installed via partisan engineering can't credibly umpire their own game.
Public trust cratered. Polls showed 40% of voters doubting 2024's fairness, a direct descendant of SoSP's erosion of norms.
Election deniers, once fringe, now mainstreamed the backlash, but the root cause traces to 2006's hubris.
The Secretary of State Project's arc—from Soros' checkbook to 2024's shadows—exposes democracy's fragility. What began as "protection" devolved into predation, corrupting the custodians of our votes. To heal, we must demand transparency: cap SOS campaign funds, ban partisan endorsements, and audit legacies like SoSP's. Only then can elections reclaim honesty, lest 2024's dishonor become prologue.
The Department of Justice has filed lawsuits against four more states as part of the Trump administration’s attempt to access sensitive voter data. The DOJ is also suing one Georgia county, seeking records from the 2020 election.
The department has now filed suit against 18 states — mostly Democratic-led, and all states that President Trump lost in the 2020 election — as part of its far-reaching litigation.
Editorial comments expressed in this column are the sole opinion of the writer.
Note: While this article explores historical and alleged influences, extensive post-election reviews by officials across parties confirmed the 2024 U.S. presidential election as secure and free from widespread fraud or dishonesty.
