Adrian Fontes

Too easy to pass up: Arizona candidates are turning to AI for their campaign material, including Republican Sens. John Kavanagh portraying himself as a Ghostbuster and Mark Finchem creating an image of Secretary of State Adrian Fontes in handcuffs, Reagan Priest reports for the Capitol Times. The practice might repel anti-AI voters, but as long as the candidates disclose that the images were created by AI, they’re within the bounds of the law. (June 2, 2026)

Calling all recorders: The election-denying crowd is gaining steam again and Democratic officials at the Capitol are warning county officials not to hand over unredacted voter files to the Trump administration, Sasha Hupka reports for Votebeat. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, both Democrats, sent a letter to county recorders saying they should decline “any such illegal demands.” Their letter came shortly after Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen said he’d given the FBI the data gathered by the Cyber Ninjas as they tried to debunk the 2020 election results in Maricopa County. (March 12, 2026)

Adapting to the times: In light of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes says candidates can use campaign funds for personal security, the Capitol Times’ Reagan Priest reports. Fontes sent out a memo saying state law isn’t clear on whether campaign funds can be used for that purpose, but his office won’t open any complaints if candidates feel the need to use their campaign haul to pay for a bodyguard or other security needs. Fontes and staff in his office have faced threats of their own, and in 2023, Fontes asked the state to pay for an around-the-clock security detail, which the Department of Public Safety denied. Republican Sen. Shawnna Bolick,1 said the decision is a good starting off point, but could require more legislation to restrict what people are allowed to purchase. “If it’s not clearly defined how you want to secure yourself, you might have members who think this is a good time to go out and buy a bunch of firearms or attack dogs or something silly,” Bolick said. (October 7, 2025)

Just to clarify: Arizona’s Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes are warning county elections officials not to turn over confidential voter information to the Trump administration, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. They wrote a letter to county recorders saying there is a lawsuit underway to determine whether the U.S. Department of Justice has a legal right to request unredacted voter information. At the same time, Mayes and Fontes say Trump officials may use subpoenas — like they did with Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen last week — to get information before a judge rules on the lawsuit. “We reiterate our offices' position here just in case you may be contemplating disclosure,” Mayes and Fontes wrote to county recorders. "We write to inform you that doing so would violate both federal and state law.'’ (March 12, 2026)

2026 is the new 2022: The Pinal County Recorder’s Office printed more than 1,400 ballots with errors, Kevin Reagan reports for 12News. An investigation by the recorder’s office found a vendor hired by the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office gave them the wrong information, although Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said the counties are responsible for verifying the information used in their ballots. The error only affected precinct committeeman races, but it quickly brought to mind Pinal County’s blunder in the 2022 elections when polling locations ran out of ballots. (June 30, 2026)

Not your cookie jar: Three of the state’s top elected officials have started running ads featuring their name and image just in time for this year’s elections, despite it being unlawful to use office funds for political gain, the Republic’s Ray Stern reports. State Treasurer Kimberly Yee, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne all launched advertisements for statewide initiatives associated with their offices. Horne’s office spent about $180,000 to send signed letters to parents of Arizona’s top students. Fontes went much bigger, spending $1 million to promote a ballot tracking landing page with his face plastered all over it. (July 14, 2026)

Not In My Precinct: A Maricopa County judge ruled that Secretary of State Adrian Fontes can’t force counties to adopt vote center systems where voters can cast ballots anywhere instead of only in assigned precincts, KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky reports. Pinal County, one of the few Arizona counties that still uses a precinct model, sued over an Elections Procedures Manual rule requiring counties to let voters use voting machines even if they show up at the wrong polling place. (May 6, 2026)

Fontes locks horns with DOJ: Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is prepared to duke it out with Trump and the U.S. Department of Justice after the DOJ sent a letter threatening state officials to only allow citizens to cast a ballot, which is already illegal, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. Trump is preparing to drop an announcement today about elections and Fontes is prepared to fight in court to ensure federal officials don't meddle in state elections. (July 16, 2026)

The fraudit never ended: Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Attorney General Kris Mayes — who also happens to be the person Petersen is trying to unseat in this year’s election. Petersen says Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes may have obstructed justice and tampered with witnesses when they told county recorders not to comply with grand jury subpoenas for private voter records. Mayes also asked Petersen whether he turned over private information when he released records from the Cyber Ninjas’ “fraudit” of the 2020 election to the U.S. Attorney’s Office last month. Yesterday, Fontes called Petersen’s referral to the U.S. Attorney’s Office “political theater” and Mayes said Petersen was “desperately seeking favor from a president who cannot accept that he lost his re-election in 2020 fair and square.” (April 8, 2026)

Just fine as is: The Arizona Supreme Court won’t force Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to rewrite the description of Proposition 144, a ballot measure that would enact sweeping changes to the state’s voting laws, per the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers. The justices said the America First Legal Foundation didn’t have standing to sue, and the language Fontes used for Proposition 144 was within his discretion. That puts Prop 144 on the list of eight ballot measures voters will consider in November, which you can peruse with this handy guide from the Mirror’s Jim Small. (August 21, 2026)

Cents of security: The Arizona Senate will consider a bill to solidify a policy allowing political candidates to use campaign cash on personal security, Jeremy Duda of Axios Phoenix writes. While Secretary of State Adrian Fontes already allows for the practice, bill sponsor and Republican Sen. T.J. Shope said he wanted to enshrine it in law. Senate Bill 1189 passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously. (February 6, 2026)

Consider the messenger: Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said federal officials assured him that ICE agents would not show up at voting locations in Arizona, but he still isn’t convinced, the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reports. Elections officials were on a call with officials from various federal agencies, including Heather Honey, an election denier who now holds a senior role at the Department of Homeland Security. “I’m not relieved at all, because the guarantee that there would be no ICE at polling places came from Heather Honey, so I’m not sure we can depend on that,” Fontes said. (February 26, 2026)

Label-less once again: The Arizona Independent Party is no more after a Maricopa County Superior Court judge overruled Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ decision last year to let the “No Labels Party call itself the “Arizona Independent Party,” the Capitol Times’ Reagan Priest reports. The ruling leaves quite a few unknowns, considering around a dozen Arizona Independent Party candidates have qualified for the ballot, running for everything from the Governor’s Office to Congress to state Legislature. Fontes said he won’t appeal, but Arizona independent Party leader Paul Johnson told Axios Phoenix’s Jeremy Duda that he wants to take the issue to a higher court. And he hopes that his party’s candidates can still run under the party formerly known as No Labels. The judge called the name-swap a “political bait and switch.” (March 26, 2026) "Would the same 41,000 people who signed petitions to recognize the No Labels Party have signed to support the 'Arizona Nazi Party' or the 'Arizona Anarchists'?” the judge wrote. (March 26, 2026)

Taking aim at mail-in voting: As the race for Arizona secretary of state heats up, Gina Swoboda claims her rival for the GOP nomination, Rep. Alexander Kolodin, is trying to get rid of mail-in voting, David Iversen reports for KTAR. Last year, an attorney for Hobbs raised concerns that a provision in Kolodin’s elections bill “looks like a bullet in the head” of the early voting list used to automatically send out ballots to voters, Swoboda said on the Mike Broomhead Show. Kolodin “laughed in her face and said, ‘That’s because it is,’” Swoboda said. Kolodin didn’t deny the account. Instead, he responded by criticizing Democratic incumbent Adrian Fontes. (March 30, 2026)

Keep calm and mail on: Secretary of State Adrian Fontes reassured voters they can continue to vote by mail after the U.S. Supreme Court removed a legal roadblock to President Donald Trump’s executive order to change mail-in ballot rules, per the Capitol Times’ Carsten Oyer. Trump directed the U.S. Postal Service in March to develop the new ballot rules, including requiring the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of eligible U.S. citizen voters for state election officials. Attorney General Kris Mayes joined 22 other states in suing to stop the order, but the Supreme Court didn’t rule on whether it was legal — only that a lower court lacked jurisdiction to block it. There’s still a separate injunction on the executive order thanks to a lawsuit by the League of Women Voters. (August 26, 2026)

Back to No Labels?: Hugh Lytle, Arizona’s latest candidate for governor, is denouncing legislation that would bar political parties from using the word “independent” in their names, a move that could upend the new Arizona Independent Party he’s running under, Cronkite News’ Dermont Stevenson reports. Republican Sen. T.J. Shope is sponsoring the bill, arguing it’s needed to prevent voter confusion between registered independents and members of a party using “Independent” in its title. In December, the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission voted to sue Secretary of State Adrian Fontes for allowing the name change, arguing it's confusing to voters. (February 18, 2026)

Some records should stay secret: Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ office accidentally released names, phone numbers and addresses of hundreds of voters on a protected voter list to political and consumer data firms, Sasha Hupka reports for Votebeat. The protected voter list includes survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and more. The screwup started in February 2024, and the data was included in responses to public records requests for about nine months until the error was flagged and fixed. The office blamed an employee who was fired afterwards. This isn’t the first time names in the protected database have been made public — back in 2020, during then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ tenure, a few dozen names were released to political parties. (June 2, 2026)

An election molehill: The U.S. Department of Justice threatened to prosecute elections officials who knowingly allow noncitizens to vote or keep them on voter rolls, the Arizona Mirror’s Gloria Rebecca Gomez reports. Arizona was one of more than a dozen states that received the letter, which asked Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ office to respond within five days explaining how the state complies with federal election laws. Fontes called the letter “insulting” to election workers, and said his office will continue to require proof of citizenship — not because of “political rhetoric or intimidation,” but because it’s been state law since 2004. (July 9, 2026)

Worst-case scenarios: Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is drawing up plans for responding if President Donald Trump tries to cancel the November elections, 12News’ Joe Dana reports. At a forum in Phoenix last week, Fontes said “the bad guys are in the castle” and he’s been working with Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes on a “whole bunch of scenarios” to “preserve our democracy.” (January 21, 2026)

Feds join the fray: Get ready to hear this name a lot over the next few months: U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine. He’s the top Department of Justice official in Arizona who was first appointed by former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi last year. He signed off on the recent grand jury subpoena seeking voter records from the Cyber Ninjas shenanigans, and he’s taking seriously the allegations of witness tampering Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen leveled against his would-be political opponent, Attorney General Kris Mayes, and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky reports. The letter he sent to Petersen reads like it was written by a person who’s on board with the nonsense election conspiracists. And he’s using the language of a person who has never heard of Donald Trump. “(I)t is astonishing that public servants who are charged with upholding the law would try to dissuade or threaten others to ignore proper legal processes,” Courchaine wrote. (April 16, 2026)

#LockMeUp: The Trump administration is suing Arizona and Connecticut to get access to unredacted voter rolls — including voters’ names, birthdates, residential addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers, Carrie Levine reports for Votebeat. We’re the 23rd state to refuse the request and get slapped with a lawsuit. Thirteen have turned over the files. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes says it would be illegal for him to turn over that information, and the feds will have to “put me in jail” before he’d release the files, per Democracy Docket. (January 8, 2026)

Wins and losses: A federal judge blocked a provision of Arizona’s elections manual that would have banned people from wearing clothing that could intimidate voters, the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers reports. The decision was a blow to Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, but Judge Michael Liburdi did allow a ban on electioneering if it’s loud enough to be heard at the door of a polling place. Liburdi also allowed election officials to kick out observers from political parties if they make repeated frivolous challenges to poll workers. Meanwhile, LUCHA is training volunteers to be election observers, with a particular focus on what to do if ICE shows up at the polls, per the Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy. (July 13, 2026)

Step right up: The list of third-tier candidates vying to take the seat of Congressman Raúl Grijalva is growing, but no big-name Democrats have been officially announced yet. As of Tuesday night, 13 candidates had filed statements of interest to run in Southern Arizona’s Congressional District 7, but not Adelita Grijalva or Adrian Fontes, though the rumor mill has both filing soon. Meanwhile, we’re already seeing polling in the Democratic primary to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. David Schweikert in CD1. Democrat Amish Shah, the 2024 nominee, is way ahead of Marlene Galán Woods, the third-place finisher in the crowded 2024 Democratic primary, per Shah’s own polling. As the Republic’s Laura Gersony recently noted, the 2026 Democratic primary in Schweikert’s district is looking like another crowded race. (March 19, 2025)

Pick a lane!: Gina Swoboda, the former AZGOP chair and Donald Trump’s co-endorsed candidate in Congressional District 1, filed a statement of interest to run for secretary of state yesterday, setting up a showdown between her and Republican Rep. Alexander Kolodin, who had hoped to have a clear path to challenge Democrat Adrian Fontes in November. Presuming Swoboda is actually switching course, that would also open up the field in the competitive CD1, where David Schweikert is retiring to run for governor and 11 Republicans have already filed statements of interest, including Trump co-endorsee Thomas "Jay” Feely, and state House Freedom Caucus leader Joseph Chaplik. (February 4, 2026)