Arizona voters in the state’s largest county will have the opportunity to hear from candidates for school board positions ahead of the November General Election.
Late last month, Maricopa County School Superintendent Steve Watson released a number of statements from candidates for 58 school board districts across his county.
143 candidate statements were published.
In a statement accompanying the release of comments, Watson said, “In every election we publish information about school board candidates, using their own words, because we’re committed to transparency and encouraging community engagement in our elections. School board races are not always the most high-profile, but they are still extremely important to the future of our neighborhoods and communities.”
There are 278 current Governing Board members, 235 Governing Board candidates seeking election, 177 Governing Board seats available this year, and 215 candidates appearing on the November ballot.
According to the press release issued by Watson’s office, “Of 235 candidates seeking a school board seat, 72 will automatically win a seat because only one candidate qualified for the ballot.”
Watson added, “Our largest districts have a lot of competition for these positions, while some of the smaller ones have less. It can be frustrating for voters to be told they can’t vote in a race because there was only one candidate running for the position.”
There were 81 elections canceled due to lack of competition, and 72 candidates appointed due to lack of competition.
Additionally, there are 20 write-in candidates, and nine seats with no candidates.
There are more than 750,000 students in Maricopa County.
Voters can access the statements from candidates here.
Early voting for the November General Election has already commenced in Arizona with more widespread ballot casting expected in the coming days.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
In a series of posts to ‘X,’ Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer reported via his personal account that his office has received the first batches of ballots under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA ). According to Richer, “The 2024 General Election is officially underway here in Maricopa County!”
We've already received back 200 Uniform and Overseas ballots.
The 2024 General Election is officially underway here in Maricopa County!
— Stephen Richer—MaricopaCountyRecorder (prsnl acct) (@stephen_richer) September 23, 2024
In full he wrote, “We’ve already received back 200 Uniform and Overseas ballots. The 2024 General Election is officially underway here in Maricopa County!”
Richer also reported via X that the Recorder’s Office now has “three remote recording kiosks up and running,” sharing the locations as the Sun City Library, the Southeast Regional Library in Gilbert, and the Georgia T. Lord Library in Goodyear.
— Stephen Richer—MaricopaCountyRecorder (prsnl acct) (@stephen_richer) September 23, 2024
He followed up with the Maricopa County Active Voter Registration Totals as of Monday totaling 2.512 million registered voters: 883,494 Republicans, 868,825 Independents, 719,324 Democrats, 19,5226 No Labels Party, 18,715 Libertarians and 2,120 Green Party.
Maricopa County Active Voter Registration Totals September 23, 2024
— Stephen Richer—MaricopaCountyRecorder (prsnl acct) (@stephen_richer) September 23, 2024
According to a Monday press release from Maricopa County Elections:
Maricopa County Elections is expecting a total turnout of 2.1 million voters.
It is expected that half of voters will do so by voting early by mail and the other half will vote early in-person, drop off an early ballot, or cast their ballot in-person on Election Day.
Approximately 315,000-420,000 voters are expected to visit a Vote Center on Election Day.
246 Vote Centers will be opened, and more than 3,000 election workers will be hired to service voters.
On the 2024 ballot, voters will decide 144 elected offices, 45 judges up for retention, and 76 ballot measures of which 13 are statewide propositions.
Jennifer Liewer, Deputy Elections Director for Communications, advised, “With a two-page ballot, containing contests on the front and back of both pages, it is more important than ever for voters to do their research ahead of time. Voters may also want to make a plan to either vote early by receiving a ballot in the mail or vote early in-person at a Vote Center to avoid longer than normal lines on Election Day.”
Since his ouster as Recorder, Richer has touted his recent lengthy interview with TIME in which he repeated his claims that “the 2020 election wasn’t stolen,” calling this view “a documented fact,” despite the hotly disputed status of the claim at the highest levels of the GOP. The outgoing County Recorder was defeated in the Republican Primary by Arizona State Rep. Justin Heap who ran on a platform to “Restore Voter Confidence.”
I’m not okay with Maricopa County elections being the laughing stock of the nation, so I’m running to fix it.
If you elect me as our next Maricopa County Recorder, I promise to:
🇺🇸 Restore voter confidence 🇺🇸 Follow the law 🇺🇸 Respect the voters 🇺🇸 Deliver faster results 🇺🇸 End…
— Az State Rep. Justin Heap (@azjustinheap) July 27, 2024
During a forum presented by the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, previously reported by AZ Free News, Heap made serious accusation against Richer that election rules were not followed and vocally defended Arizonans’ right to be skeptical about election results. He said that legal safeguards weren’t followed and that the signature verification process for mail-in ballots was “inadequate.”
“I do not trust the system as it is currently being operated,” Heap added.
Maricopa County voters appear to be locked in with their support of a sales tax renewal for the November General Election.
Earlier this month, Noble Predictive Insights (NPI) released a poll to show that Maricopa County voters were overwhelmingly in support of Proposition 479.
Proposition 479 is a result of SB 1102, which was passed in 2023, requiring “that the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors call a countywide election for the continuation of the county transportation tax at least two years before the expiration of the tax, and shall conduct that election on a consolidated election date no less than one year before the expiration of the tax.”
The official title of the measure is the “Regional Strategic Transportation Infrastructure Investment Plan.”
If passed by Maricopa County voters, the revenues would be allocated in the following manner: “(a) 40.5 percent to freeways and other routes in the state highway system; (b) 37 percent to public transportation; and (c) 22.5 percent to arterial streets, intersection improvements and regional transportation infrastructure.”
According to the September survey released from NPI, Proposition 479 had 64 percent support from voters in August, compared to 18 percent opposition. Nineteen percent of voters were undecided about the question at hand.
The numbers for Proposition 479 are largely unchanged from two previous polls, dating back to July 2023. Opposition to the measure has only increased by a single percentage point since July 2023, while support has increased by eight percent during that same time frame.
“Maricopa County voters have had their minds made up for a year on this proposition – campaigns for it have clearly worked, and Prop 479 is on the fast track to victory in November,” said Mike Noble, NPI Founder & CEO.
After the Arizona Legislature passed a compromise for this proposal in July 2023, Republican Senate President Warren Petersen claimed victory, calling SB 1102 “the most conservative transportation plan in our state’s history.” He added, “The guardrails, taxpayer protections and funding allocations in the text of this bill reflect the priorities of voters, to reinvest their tax dollars in the transportation modes they use most.”
Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs, who signed the compromise, was diplomatic in her statement, saying, “Today, bipartisan leaders invested in the future of Arizona families, businesses, and communities. The passage of the Prop 400 ballot measure will secure the economic future of our state and create hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs for Arizonans. I am glad we were able to put politics aside and do what is right for Arizona.”
Members of the Arizona Freedom Caucus were adamantly opposed to the bill as it was released and approved. After the Prop 400 plan passed through the Arizona Legislature, the Freedom Caucus tweeted, “Legislative conservatives near unanimously opposed this horrible bill. Conservative watchdog groups unanimously opposed it. The bill may have been better than the communists at @MAGregion’s horrific plan, but that’s a ludicrously low bar for success. This bill was antithetical to conservatism.”
The breakthrough on the Prop 400 compromise between Republicans and Democrats in Arizona’s divided government took place after Governor Hobbs vetoed a Republican proposal earlier that summer. At that time, Hobbs stated, “I just vetoed the partisan Prop 400 bill that fails to adequately support Arizona’s economic growth and does nothing to attract new business or create good-paying jobs.”
In May 2023, the governor had created unrest over ongoing negotiations, allegedly sending out a tweet that highlighted her fight with Republicans at the Legislature at the same time she was meeting with Senate President Warren Petersen.
Petersen stressed the importance of the agreed-upon bill, asserting that officials had “secured a good, responsible product for the citizens of Arizona to consider in 2024, giving voters the option to enhance critical infrastructure that our entire state relies upon.”
This NPI poll took place between August 12-16 with just over 1,000 registered Arizona voters, including 595 individuals in Maricopa County.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Maricopa County political races are essentially in a dead heat with less than two months until Election Day.
Earlier this month, Noble Predictive Insights (NPI) released its survey on Maricopa County races, showing Republicans and Democrats locked in a tight battle for all races.
According to NPI, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s race was tied with Republican Jerry Sheridan and Democrat Tyler Kamp tied at thirty-five percent each, with twenty-four percent undecided. Kamp has a twelve percent lead with independents, with thirty-six percent of that voting share undecided.
Incumbent Republican Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell leads Democrat Tamika Wooten by two percent (37-35%), with twenty-one percent undecided. Wooten has a ten percent lead with independents, with twenty-nine percent of that voting share undecided.
Democrat Gregory Freeman might be the frontrunner in the Maricopa County Assessor’s race, with a three-point advantage over incumbent Republican Eddie Cook (36-33%). There is twenty-six percent undecided in this race. Freeman holds a fifteen-point lead over Cook with independents, with forty percent undecided.
And in the Maricopa County Recorder’s contest, Democrat Tim Stringham leads Republican Justin Heap by four percent (38-34%), with twenty-two percent undecided. Stringham enjoys a fifteen percent lead over Heap with independents, with thirty-five percent of that voting share undecided.
“These races are incredibly close. In each one, the leading candidate is ahead by a low single-digit margin. With a high number of undecideds and more than two months between fielding this poll and Election Day – this poll just doesn’t point to a clear winner,” said Mike Noble, NPI President & CEO. “But historical data might tell us more.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
The famous poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson from the 1800s once quipped, “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you are saying.” This is especially true when observing how our elected officials operate our government.
Per several posts on X, voters recently received a text blast referencing Vice President Kamala Harris as the “presumptive Democrat nominee” and chiding her “radical” left election policy positions, including “same-day voter registration, no voter ID, and more federal control of our elections.” The text blast made a policy commitment on behalf of the current Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer to protect us from these extreme policies.
How is he going to defend against Kamala's radical policies if he's voting for her!? pic.twitter.com/nplbCEi7d1
— Rep. Alexander Kolodin (@realAlexKolodin) July 29, 2024
But when presented with the opportunity to codify such protections into law, the Maricopa County Recorder’s track record tells a different story.
In the 2022 legislative session, State Representative Jake Hoffman introduced bill HB2237, which would have made same-day voter registration illegal in Arizona.
It was a very simple bill that just stated:
Same-day voter registration is a scheme from the left to overwhelm County Recorders with thousands of registrations on Election Day or during a voting period. This makes it nearly impossible to confirm if someone is actually a legal citizen resident of Arizona before providing them with a ballot.
Currently, throughout the year, but especially at the last minute right before voter registration election deadlines, many groups in Arizona, especially from the left, have generous paid programs to register voters. They often don’t submit completed forms, creating complications for election workers. Jen Fifield from Vote Beat recently reported on the issues caused by this.
NEW: Hundreds of Arizonans who tried to register to vote just before Tuesday’s primary election were blocked from the rolls because of a problem with their paper forms, @VotebeatUS analysis found.https://t.co/Rye0LtDxmV
As the article mentions, these same extreme left groups advocate for same-day voter registration, and many pushed their members and lobbyists to sign in against HB2237 in 2022. Even Katie Hobbs’ Secretary of State Office signed in against the bill, while conservative groups like the Arizona Free Enterprise Club and Heritage Action signed in favor of banning same-day voter registration.
You would think that at such a moment as this bold, simple bill, the Maricopa County Recorder could take a strong stand and defend his employees and the voters from such an insane policy from the left. Unfortunately, neither the Recorder’s Office, his office’s lobbyist, nor the associations for the recorders and counties took a position on the bill. The Maricopa County Recorder didn’t show up to testify for or against the bill either.
Complete silence.
When it comes to voter ID, it gets much worse.
The Arizona Legislature added Proposition 309 to the 2022 ballot, which would have added a voter ID requirement on early ballots. It was a simple proposal that the Recorder’s Office was previously on record as supporting in principle, per public records.
When the bill was brought before the Legislature, the Arizona Association of Counties opposed it. There is no record of the Recorder or his lobbyist associations taking a position on the bill or offering amendments.
When the proposition made it to the ballot, the Maricopa County Recorder not only publicly opposed voter ID for early voting but also used government resources to do so.
The Arizona County Recorders (people who oversee early voting) OPPOSE Proposition 309.
— Stephen Richer—MaricopaCountyRecorder (prsnl acct) (@stephen_richer) October 11, 2022
I found this strange since all my previous interactions with Recorder Richer, from working on his 2019 “election integrity” report to conversations with his office on policy to a coffee meeting I had with him one-on-one in 2021, all indicated that his position was that signature verification alone wasn’t sufficient to secure elections and that some sort of voter ID mechanism was needed to secure early ballots.
It's interesting that you flipped your position on the effectiveness of signature verification, @stephen_richer, because last we met you affirmed that our findings from our election audit report still remained & signature review process is not sufficient to secure our vote pic.twitter.com/rHtEpIzleW
July 23, 2021, @stephen_richer told me at a coffee meeting his department has no way to legitimately verify signatures and the voter rolls were a complete mess
He said he needed at least two more identifiers to confidently confirm voter identity and stop ballot harvesting https://t.co/FXGjnqAvb2
— Merissa Hamilton 🗳 ⛽ 🗽🔥 (@merissahamilton) May 9, 2023
The Arizonans for Voter ID organization sent a letter to the Arizona Attorney General admonishing Recorder Richer for violating the law by using his government office resources to advocate against the ballot referral.
.@stephen_richer did this to voice his feelings on #Prop309 which ensures everyone shows ID, and wrongly claimed unanimous support for his letter, which doesn't exist. We hope @GeneralBrnovich protects our elections from the inappropriate influence of the Recorder's Office. pic.twitter.com/ifbsVfRZkT
The voter ID proposition ended up failing by 18,488 votes and only by 2.5% in Maricopa County.
Fast forward two years. The Maricopa County Recorder’s letter on Prop 309 is scrubbed from the internet now that he’s running for re-election, and text blasts are going out stating he will defend voter ID.
To be clear, the current Maricopa County Recorder not only has multiple associations at his disposal to advocate for or against policy, but he also has his own lobbyist for his office. With all these lobbying resources, his opponent Rep. Justin Heap was recently featured on the Mike Broomhead show as stating that although he’s served on the Legislature’s House Elections Committee for the last two years, he’s never seen the Maricopa County Recorder at the Legislature. Heap says Recorder Richer has been a “hindrance” in passing needed laws, such as those to fight radical left policies.
When it comes to federal laws, as I mentioned in my piece on AZ Free News last week, the current Recorder has also been silent on his award-winning X platform in advocating for the Speaker Johnson-supported SAVE Act to require proof of citizenship for voters in federal elections.
One thing is for certain, while the current Maricopa County Recorder has taken a back seat when it comes to defending voters from radical left policies, Maricopa County voters are certainly desperate for our county recorders to use their resources to give us a stronger voice in standing up for policies that would strengthen the security and trust in our elections.
Merissa Hamilton is the founder and chairwoman of the nonpartisan nonprofit organizations Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona and Strong Communities Action, also known as EZAZ.org, which are focused on making civic education and action as easy as pie. She’s an elected Member at Large of Congressional District 1 for the Arizona Republican Party and previously ran for Mayor in 2020. Merissa is also the Director of Integration and Policy at The R.O.A.R. PAC, which is on a mission to restore our American Republic.
