Secretary of State
From Ballotpedia
Secretary of State is an official in the state governments of 47 of the 50 states of the United States. In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, this official is called the Secretary of the Commonwealth. In the states of Alaska, Hawaii, and Utah, there is no Secretary of State; in those states many duties that a Secretary of State might normally execute fall within the domain of the Lieutenant Governor. Like the Lieutenant Governor, in most states the Secretary of State is in the line of succession to succeed the Governor, usually immediately behind the Lieutenant Governor. In those states with no Lieutenant Governor, such as Arizona, the Secretary of State is sometimes first in the line of succession in the event of a vacancy in the governorship.
The duties of a state’s Secretary of State vary from state to state. In most states, the Secretary of State’s office is a creation of the original draft of the state constitution. However, in many cases, responsibilities have been added by statute or executive order.
Typical responsibilities
Areas that state Secretaries of State typically have some degree of responsibility for are:
- Elections and voting
- State business services, including registering corporations
- Archiving government documents.
Elected, appointed
- Of the 47 American states with a Secretary of State, 35 elect that officeholder to office.
- Nine of the 47 states appoint their Secretary of State. These states are Delaware, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.
- In three of the 47 states with secretaries of state, the officeholder is chosen by that state's state legislature. These three states are Maine, New Hampshire and Tennessee.
External links
| ||||||||||||||
Portions of this article have been adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Copyright Notice can be found here.
