By Staff Reporter |
The Republican candidate for the Arizona secretary of state race stands in support of precinct-based voting.
Alexander Kolodin, a Republican lawmaker representing LD3, told Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller in a sit-down interview that precinct-based voting had “the opposite” effect of disenfranchising disabled voters.
Rather, Kolodin said that the vote center model preferred by his opponent — incumbent Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat — presents a greater risk for disenfranchisement because of the distance between vote centers.
“Precinct-based voting — I want to make this very clear — is the opposite of disenfranchising disabled voters. It is the vote center model that disenfranchises the most disabled voters because, again, it’s that travel time, it’s that distance,” said Kolodin.
Kolodin added that the distances between vote centers compared to precinct polling were more costly, gas- and time-wise. Kolodin likened the cost to taxation, with the greater burden on disabled voters.
“It’s almost a poll tax. Imagine how much gasoline it costs these days to drive 30 miles. You drive 30 miles there and back, I tell you in my car that’s going to cost me $10, $15 bucks. So, I’d have to pay that money in order to vote,” said Kolodin. “It’s hard for me to get a caregiver who can have that much time to take me if I’m a disabled person that far to vote, whereas if I have a polling place in my precinct, that becomes a much easier lift for me.”
Earlier this month, Secretary of State Fontes lost a court fight with Pinal County over its precinct-based voting model. Fontes sued in 2024 to force the county to adopt vote centers under the guise of retaining precinct-based voting.
In the 2025 Election Procedures Manual (EPM), Fontes mandated that all counties with precinct-based voting repurpose the Accessible Voting Devices (AVDs) to contain provisional ballots for the entire county. AVDs were intended and used exclusively in the past for voters with disabilities. Under Fontes’ design, precinct-based polling places would deprioritize voters with disabilities by requiring them to share this specialized voting equipment with out-of-precinct voters.
The court ruled that Fontes’ mandate would likely disenfranchise disabled voters.
Fontes dismissed the judge’s ruling as “sid[ing] with conspiracy theorists” in a social media post. He claimed his 2025 EPM policy wasn’t rooted in a desire to force “de facto” vote center models, as the court ruling stated, but instead an intent to allow voters with disabilities to vote wherever they wanted in the county.
“We were trying to help voters with disabilities just go to whatever polling place they can get to the easiest and cast a ballot from anywhere in their county,” said Fontes. “Unfortunately, for now, the politics have won in the court.”
However, that EPM policy didn’t explicitly limit AVDs usage to out-of-precinct voters with disabilities. The policy opened up the AVDs to all out-of-precinct voters.
“If the voter declines or is unable to travel to the voter’s assigned polling place, permit the voter to vote a provisional ballot in the correct ballot style for the voter’s assigned precinct using an accessible voting device that is programmed to contain all ballot styles,” stated the 2025 EPM. “The election official should inform the voter that their provisional ballot will be counted only if it is confirmed the voter is otherwise eligible to vote and did not vote early or at another voting location and had that other ballot counted as determined by the County Recorder.”
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