The Wisconsin Secretary of State has almost no policymaking power. Pete Karas says its party label does not inform voters. It simply turns an administrative office into another partisan contest.

The office has been stripped of nearly all its statutory authority since 1946. Today it runs on two full-time staff and functions mainly as a records custodian. It doesn’t write policy. It doesn’t vote on legislation. It doesn’t run Wisconsin’s elections. That’s the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s job.

“Slapping a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ on this office doesn’t tell voters anything useful. It just turns a records-keeping job into another partisan fight, and it tricks people into skipping a race where their vote could actually break the two-party lock.”
Pete Karas

Wisconsin already elects judges and the Superintendent of Public Instruction without party labels. The Secretary of State should join them.

He’s running on the Green Party ballot line, with endorsements from the Transhumanist Party, Pirate Party, and Independence Party, but says the label is a product of the current system, not a preference.

“I need a party line to get on the ballot. But nobody after me should have to. If this office has almost no power, a party label on it is just decoration. Making it nonpartisan is honesty in ballot design.”
Pete Karas


The Safest Place To Brake The Party Habit

Karas’s campaign has centered on a simple structural argument: the Wisconsin Secretary of State is the weakest elected office of its kind in the country. That makes it the lowest-risk place on the ballot for frustrated voters to cast a vote that says something.

No spoiler effect. No lesser-evil calculation. This is the safest race on Wisconsin’s ballot for voters who want to challenge the two-party lock. And once the office becomes nonpartisan, future voters will be able to judge its candidates by the job rather than the letter beside their names.