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Mark Ritchie
21st Minnesota Secretary of State
In office January 2, 2007 – Incumbent
Preceded by	Mary Kiffmeyer
Succeeded by	Incumbent
Born	1951 Iowa
Political party	Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
Spouse	Nancy Gaschott
Profession	President of non-profit agricultural organization

Mark Ritchie (born 1951) was elected to be the 21st Minnesota Secretary of State on November 7, 2006. He a member of the DFL. Mark Ritchie grew up in Iowa, and he graduated from Iowa State University in 1971. He and his wife, Nancy Gaschott, have lived in Minneapolis for 24 years.

In the 1980s, Ritchie worked as a high-ranking official in the Minnesota Agriculture Department where he became involved in an incident where he sent copies of confidential trade documents to members of Congress. According to a Star Tribune story, the U.S. trade representative at the time said that the documents were classified and that their release could have hurt the country's negotiating position with other nations. Ritchie, however, denied in the article that the documents were secret and said he had obtained them legitimately [1]. In any event, the controversy did not diminish respect for Ritchie in the civic society community or in the international trade community. Ritchie's visionary work on trade in that era will be remembered for awakening NGOs and legal academics as to the dangers of trade negotiations that are unchaponered by attention to health, environment, and human rights.

From 1986 until 2006, he served as the president of the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a non-profit organization working with businesses, churches, farm organizations, and other civic groups to foster long-term sustainability for Minnesota’s rural communities. Ritchie also founded the League of Rural Voters

In 1994, Ritchie was a co-founder of the Global Environment & Trade Study, located at Yale University, which conducted research on the linkages and potential synergies between international trade and the environoment. Also that year, Ritchie organized a conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Bretton Woods conference. The 1994 conference, held at the Mt. Washington Hotel, featured a return of many of the "old timers" who had attended the 1944 conference or other founding conferences for the postwar economic system.

In 2004, Ritchie took a leave of absence from the Institute when he was asked to lead National Voice, a national coalition of non-partisan organizations from across the country including church, business, and community organizations. National Voice included over 400 Minnesota organizations that formed the Minnesota Participation Project. The national media campaign, called "NOVEMBER 2," and these organizations helped voters find new ways to get involved in the elections. Their goal was to register and turn out over 5 million new voters nationwide. As part of this work, Ritchie appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Election Night 2004.

Ritchie was asked in 2005 to testify before the Midwest Regional Hearing of the National Commission On The Voting Rights Act about the importance of voting and the challenges minority voters faced in 2004 [2].

See also: Politics of Minnesota

• 2006 Race for state Secretary of State
  • Mark Ritchie (D), 49.09%
  • Mary Kiffmeyer (R) (inc.), 44.16%
  • Bruce Kennedy (independent), 3.67%
  • Joel Spoonheim (I), 3.02%

• Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
• League of Rural Voters
• Campaign website
• Ritchie's Testimony before the Midwest Regional Hearing of the National Commission On The Voting Rights Act
• 2006 Election Results
• Minnesota Secretary of State