Incumbent Doug La Follette (D), Amy Loudenbeck (R), Sharyl McFarland (G), and Neil Harmon (L) are running for Wisconsin secretary of state on Nov. 8, 2022.
Duties of the Wisconsin secretary of state include recording the official acts of the governor and the executive department, compiling and keeping laws and resolutions adopted by the legislature, having custody of the state’s records, and authenticating certain documents. According to Wisconsin Public Radio‘s Shawn Johnson, “[M]ost of the office’s responsibilities have been outsourced to other state agencies that answer to the governor.”
The responsibilities of the office have been a central issue in this race, particularly concerning election administration. Wisconsin is one of five states where the secretary of state has no election-related duties. The legislature transferred election administration responsibilities from the secretary of state to a nonpartisan elections board in 1974. Since 2016, the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission has overseen the state’s election administration. La Follette and Loudenbeck disagree about whether the secretary of state should have a role in the state’s election system.
