The AZ State Senate had to sue Secretary of State Adrian Fontes over his illegal changes to the AZ Elections Manual. That publication is crucial because it's the rules all elections officials in the state must follow.
We won. And FINALLY he was forced to make changes to comply with the law!
VoteBeat Arizona has the story:
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is walking back election rules that he said would better protect voters, after Republicans successfully challenged them in court.
In a draft rulebook for the state’s 2026 midterm elections, known as the Election Procedures Manual, released Friday, Fontes deleted examples of what constitutes illegal voter intimidation. He also deleted a paragraph that said the secretary of state could finalize the state’s election results without a particular county’s results, if that county’s officials missed the state deadline to finalize them.
The inclusion of those provisions in the previous edition of the manual, released in 2023 ahead of the 2024 elections, drew Republican lawsuits alleging that Fontes had exceeded his authority, and courts ruled against him.
Fontes, a Democrat, said that he has to follow court orders and that he believes the new version will still protect voters and the integrity of elections.
“We’re trying to walk the line between some of the crazy rulings that we’ve seen coming out of the court that seem to protect the First Amendment rights of people who would scream at voters in line, and those First Amendment rights of voters to peaceably assemble, with this new approach,” Fontes said.
Republican Senate President Warren Petersen said in a statement Friday that Republican lawmakers would review the draft closely. If Fontes is now in full compliance with the law, he said, “then we celebrate our win for election integrity.”
“Any attempt to stretch or rewrite the law through bureaucratic overreach will be met with strong legislative and legal scrutiny,” he said.
This is just one of several challenges in court we have with Fontes. He is trying to abuse his office to MAKE the law, instead of FOLLOWING Arizona's election laws.
We will hit him with a lawsuit on that every time.
I wanted you to have some examples of how we as legislators are working hard for you- even when the Democrat Governor vetoes some of our best legislation.
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PAID FOR BY WENDY ROGERS FOR AZ SENATE
Wendy Rogers is a retired member of the Air Force. Use of military rank, job titles, and photographs in uniform does not imply endorsement by the Department of the Air Force or the Department of Defense.
