Executive branch spotlight: Secretaries of State
Cicero’s bread and butter is matching addresses to legislative districts and providing accurate contact and other information for legislators. Last year we expanded our coverage of the executive branch. We now maintain data for over a dozen executive positions in each of the 50 states and the U.S. territories. The best part is that we offer it to customers for free.
This is the first installment in a series where we’ll highlight one of the executive positions we track and why it matters.
What Secretaries of State do
Owing to federalism, no two secretaries of state have exactly the same job description, and some states — Alaska, Hawaii, and Utah — don’t even have the position. In the latter, the Lt. Governor performs the duties of a secretary of state. Most commonly those duties include serving as the state’s chief elections official; administering the Uniform Commercial Code, which seeks to harmonize state law pertaining to commercial transactions; acting as the primary repository for official state records; and deciding where the state seal should appear. Beyond that, there is a lot of variation from one state to another.
How they get the job
Over two-thirds of secretaries of state are popularly elected while most others are appointed by the governor and subject to confirmation by the state senate. In just a handful of states — Maine, New Hampshire, and Tennessee — the state legislature determines who gets the job. In all but one state, secretaries serve 4-year terms. Once in the position, most choose to join the National Association of Secretaries of State, which started in 1904 at the Saint Louis World’s Fair and purports to be the oldest organization of major public officials in the U.S.
Why they matter
Did we mention they serve as their state’s chief elections official? Each secretary administers all aspects of federal, state, and local elections in their state and oversees crucial tasks like registering new voters and ensuring polling place accessibility. One need look no further than the 2020 U.S. presidential election and its aftermath to understand the consequential role that secretaries of state played in upholding the will of voters. More broadly, secretaries of state have a great deal of power to make the franchise more inclusive (or more out of reach), with significant consequences for American democracy and communities that have historically been disenfranchised.
Access our executive data now
If you are one of our API or District Match customers, this data is free; simply continue to use the tools as you have been and see the additional data appear in your results. If you’re not yet a Cicero user, we invite you to sign up for a free API trial or a District Match account and access our expanded coverage today.
