By Staff Reporter |
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes reportedly hasn’t received updated felony reports from the federal government for about a year, but the Department of Justice (DOJ) says it has provided them.
Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap stated in a press release on Thursday that he learned the reports were available after contacting the DOJ. Heap said Fontes has refused to provide these reports for a year. As a result, county recorders are reportedly missing three quarterly reports containing up-to-date data on ineligible voters.
Heap said he was “disappointed” by Fontes’ decision to misrepresent the status of the reports.
“As the County Recorder for Arizona’s most populated county, I am disappointed that Secretary Fontes would gamble the trust of Arizona voters on a lie,” said Heap. “Arizona is missing at least three full quarters of felony data and voter ineligibility due to Secretary Fontes’ failure to follow the law.”
Heap also reported that the DOJ advised him that it had issued its second quarter federal felony report for 2026 to Fontes on Thursday.
“I am calling on Secretary Fontes to produce the missing reports immediately, so that Recorders can do their job and ensure integrity on our voter rolls,” said Heap.
Rather than focus on giving county recorders the data they need to locate those who need to be removed from the voter rolls, Fontes has focused his efforts on addressing the Trump administration’s recent initiative to purge voter rolls of unlawful voters.
This week, Fontes submitted a letter to the Arizona District Attorney’s Office addressing “troubling allegations” from a whistleblower that the Unlawful Voter Initiative, the federal government’s new initiative to identify and remove unlawful voters, was granting unauthorized access to voter registration information.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Citizenship and Immigration Services were cited as partners in the initiative. These agencies coordinate to cross-reference voter rolls with immigrant databases.
District Attorney Timothy Courchaine responded on Friday that the federal government was not violating privacy laws, citing the Supreme Court’s Friday decision in DHS v. League of Women Voters permitting DHS to request and receive citizenship status information.
“By prohibiting interference with the disclosure of information regarding citizenship status to DHS — ‘[n]otwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law’ — Congress necessarily authorized DHS to request and receive that information,” stated the ruling. “It is improbable that Congress intended to place officials in such a bind when it passed the [Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996].”
President Donald Trump issued an executive order last March directing DHS to grant every state and local official responsible for voter registration systems with free access to federal citizenship and immigration status verification systems.
DHS praised the ruling as supportive of a new safeguard for American elections.
“This decision is a victory for election integrity,” said DHS General Counsel James Percival. “It’s remarkable that we had to file an emergency petition in the Supreme Court just so we can use government data to stop noncitizens from voting illegally. American elections are for Americans. The Trump Administration and the Department of Homeland Security will use every tool at our disposal to secure our elections.”
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