Two far-right U.S. politicians who want to upend the way votes are cast and counted are tied or leading in races to become the top election administrators in their states, according to recent polls.
Republicans Jim Marchant of Nevada and Mark Finchem of Arizona promote wild conspiracy theories about how the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. A victory in November could allow them, as secretaries of state, to restrict voting access or seek to block certification of results in these two critical battlegrounds for presidential elections.
Marchant and Finchem want to curtail or abolish early voting, mail-in voting and ballot drop-boxes, claiming without evidence that they breed fraud. Both advocate banning electronic voting machines and returning to hand-counted paper ballots to secure elections. Election experts and officials of both major parties have said such changes would actually make elections more prone to fraud and error, while making it harder for citizens to vote.
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