Here’s how some officials think elections should run

Delivered every Monday by 10 a.m., Weekly Score is your guide to the year-round campaign cycle.

Feb 13, 2023 View in browser   By Zach Montellaro and Madison Fernandez TOP LINE FIRST IN SCORE — The NewDEAL Forum, the policy-focused arm of a group of state and local progressive Democratic officials, is out with a new, expansive report called its “Democracy Playbook,” a list of policy recommendations for how to actually run elections. The group said it pulled the report together given all the focus that has been on the mechanics of American democracy over the last couple years. “We're excited about it, and particularly coming off the heels of the president's State of the Union speech where he talked about the fact that little else matters if we don't get democracy right,” said Debbie Cox Bultan, the CEO of the organization. “We think that's right. And we think that this continues to be an urgent problem, even though it's not necessarily on the front pages every day.” The guide is a fairly comprehensive roadmap of where most mainstream Democratic election officials and left-of-center policy experts believe the actual mechanics of running an election should head. The proposals are in three broad categories: Election integrity, which is generally how election administrators oversee the process; voting, how regular voters interact with the system; and civic engagement, which is about bringing voters and businesses into the process. The recommendations range from fairly universally accepted best practices — local election officials having updated, robust websites — to ideas that would likely result in drag out fights in state legislatures, like expanding access to mail voting. (Score can independently confirm that many election officials’ websites are … less than optimal.) “It is not meant to be a one-size-fits-all report, that we want everybody to be doing exactly this,” said Bultan. “It's really a menu of options that recognizes that everyone's on their own journey for this. But the key thing is we just want everyone to be taking steps to expand access to the ballot, to increase transparency.” Some of those transparency-targeted initiatives stood out. Beyond updating websites, the report recommends that states switch over their election machines to those that provide a paper trail for voting — most states do in some form, but there are some holdouts; require “high-quality” post-election audits, which have become increasingly popular over the last decade; have active communications with the media; and partner with third-party observers. “Election officials should view third-party observers as partners, not opponents. Observers operating in good faith have the same objectives as officials: To ensure a fair, safe election,” the report read. (Related to this report: The National Association of Secretaries of State’s winter conference is this week in D.C. Are you attending? Email me.) Happy Monday. Thanks to Zach for today’s top line — and make sure to find him at NASS! Don’t forget to send tips: mfernandez@politico.com and @madfernandez616. Days until the VA-04 special election and Wisconsin Supreme Court primary: 8 Days until the Kentucky primary: 92 Days until the Mississippi primary: 176 Days until the Louisiana primary: 243 Days until the 2023 election: 267 Days until the 2024 election: 631   We’re spilling the tea (and drinking tons of it in our newsroom) in U.K. politics with our latest newsletter, London Playbook PM. Get to know all the movers and shakers in Westminster and never miss a beat of British politics with a free subscription. Don’t miss out, we’ve got some exciting moves coming. Sign up today.     Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories. CAMPAIGN INTEL IN THE STATES — Plenty of action happened in state parties over the weekend: … Gus Bickford is stepping down as chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party this spring. POLITICO’s Lisa Kashinsky reports that Democratic Gov. Maura Healey and Bickford are both backing Steve Kerrigan, a former lieutenant governor nominee who Bickford defeated to win party chair in 2016, as the Democrats’ next leader. … Kansas Republican Mike Brown, a former county commissioner who spread election conspiracies, was elected GOP party chair in one of the closest races for party chair in state history, writes the Kansas Reflector’s Tim Carpenter. He defeated Helen Van Etten, a former RNC national committeewoman, 90-88. Brown ran for Kansas secretary of state last year but lost in the primary. … Anderson Clayton was elected to be chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party. The 25-year-old beat incumbent Chair Bobbie Richardson, who had the backing of Gov. Roy Cooper and other top Democratic officials as she made the bid for her second term. Democrats didn’t have a strong showing statewide in November, including losing the Senate race and losing control of the state Supreme Court. … Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes was reelected for a third term after a successful 2022 cycle for Michigan Democrats. … Louisiana Democratic Party Chair Katie Bernhardt said she plans to remain as party chair and will not run for governor, The Advocate’s Tyler Bridges reports. Bernhardt faced backlash after appearing in an ad from Team Louisiana PAC that suggested aspirations for higher office. “The ad prompted calls from both the left wing and right wing of the party for the centrist Bernhardt to resign, saying she needed to focus on recruiting candidates, raising money and registering voters.” WHEN IN IOWA — “Arizona Republican Kari Lake said Saturday she isn’t in Iowa running for president or trying to raise her profile to become vice president — but she didn’t completely shut the door on being Donald Trump’s running mate if he asks,” The Des Moines Register’s Brianne Pfannenstiel writes. 2024 WATCH — Texas Republican Kyle Sinclair has filed to run for TX-28, currently held by Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar. He lost in the general election last year in TX-20 to Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro. PARTY SWITCH — New Jersey State Sen. Samuel Thompson, a former Donald Trump delegate, “will switch parties and seek re-election to a fifth term as a Democrat in a heavily-Republican district,” the New Jersey Globe’s David Wildstein writes. “I don’t feel I am leaving my party,” Thompson told Wildstein. “I feel my party leadership has abandoned me.” Presidential Big Board — Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ team is planning a retreat for over 100 donors, GOP leaders and lawmakers in Palm Beach at the end of the month, Bloomberg’s Nancy Cook reports. And the super PAC supporting former President Donald Trump’s presidential bid will hold its first fundraiser of the 2024 election at Mar-a-Lago, per The New York Times’ Michael C. Bender and Maggie Haberman. — Trump’s 2020 campaign “commissioned an outside research firm in a bid to prove electoral-fraud claims but never released the findings because the firm disputed many of his theories and could not offer any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election,” The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey writes. “Among the areas examined were voter machine malfunctions, instances of dead people voting and any evidence that could help Trump show he won, the people said. None of the findings were presented to the public or in court.” … “Potential Fulton charges put Trump in tough political spot,” by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Greg Bluestein and Tamar Hallerman — Former Republican Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner and operative Rob Collins are co-chairing Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.) Opportunity Matters Fund Action, Axios’ Josh Kraushaar scoops. “Scott's decision to tap two politically-savvy Republicans — a former senator who chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee and a former executive director of the NRSC — is a sign that he's moving closer to launching a 2024 presidential campaign.” — “The ‘CEO of Anti-Woke Inc.’ Has His Eye on the Presidency,” by POLITICO’s Daniel Lippman: Vivek Ramaswamy “wants to pull off what Donald Trump did in 2016: enter the race with an entrepreneurial spirit, unorthodox ideas, and few expectations, and end up developing a major following that will carry him to the presidency — even if it seems like a long shot at the moment.” Ramaswamy has been on the road, and is planning to hit New Hampshire and Iowa again later this month.   DOWNLOAD THE POLITICO MOBILE APP: Stay up to speed with the newly updated POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. The sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don’t miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need, reimagined. DOWNLOAD FOR iOS– DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID.     VOTING RIGHTS FIRST IN SCORE — The Democratic National Committee is looking to intervene in a lawsuit in Wisconsin state court that is challenging the use of “alternate” absentee voting sites, Zach writes in. The initial lawsuit came from the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which argued that the Racine city clerk’s use of an “election van” that let voters cast early in-person absentee votes in the midterms was illegal. (Here is more background on the case from the Democracy Docket, the site founded by Democratic megalawyer Marc Elias, and WILL’s press release from when the group initially filed the suit.) The national party’s filing here largely argues for why it should be allowed to intervene in the lawsuit. “Plaintiff’s lawsuit is the latest salvo in a relentless series of attacks in recent years that aim to make it harder for Wisconsin voters to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote in the state’s elections,” attorneys for the DNC wrote. — The Florida Legislature passed a bill during its special session that would give the Office of Statewide Prosecution power to investigate and prosecute election-related crimes. Last year, DeSantis signed a bill creating one of the nation’s only election police units, and last August highlighted the arrest of 20 people for allegedly illegally voting in the 2020 election because they had previous convictions for serious crimes like murder. Those arrests came under scrutiny because the defendants were told by government officials that they were allowed to cast ballots. Judges tossed the charges against three defendants in part because the Office of Statewide Prosecution does not have jurisdiction in election fraud cases. It’s unclear if the change would retroactively apply to the defendants who had already been charged by the office. AS SEEN ON TV — Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewicz, one of the liberal candidates in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, is responding to an attack ad from outside groups that hit her last week. Protasiewicz’s spot calls out both conservative candidates, Waukesha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Dorow and former state Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly. — Michigan Republican Perry Johnson, who announced his intention to run for president, aired a spot in Iowa markets during the Super Bowl. THE CASH DASH — “Black candidates sound off: We needed more help from Dem groups,” by POLITICO’s Brittany Gibson and Holly Otterbein: “In the modern political system, raising money is only one component of a successful campaign. Getting outside help is the other. And as the 2022 cycle came to a close, operatives on some of the high-profile races said they felt ill-equipped to compete against GOP super PACs as Democratic Party groups looked to protect incumbents and poured money into other races, like Pennsylvania.” STAFFING UP — Leah Johnson is now deputy finance director for Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown’s reelection campaign. CODA — HEADLINE OF THE DAY: “Texas taxpayers face a $100 million bill to update voting machines with equipment that doesn’t exist yet” (The Texas Tribune)   Follow us on Twitter Steven Shepard @politico_steve Zach Montellaro @zachmontellaro Ally Mutnick @allymutnick Madison Fernandez @madfernandez616   Follow us

To change your alert settings, please log in at https://www.politico.com/_login?base=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com/settings This email was sent to rouf@idiot.cloudns.cc by: POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA Please click here and follow the steps to unsubscribe.