by Staff Reporter | Mar 9, 2025 | News
By Staff Reporter |
The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled against the Elections Procedures Manual (EPM) produced by Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.
Judge Lacey Gard reversed and remanded a lower court decision dismissing the case, Republican National Committee, et al. vs. Adrian Fontes, et al., last summer. Gard ruled the EPM fell under the Arizona Administrative Procedure Act (APA), a “plain reading” of the statute contrary to what the lower court ruled. Gard also dismissed Fontes’ arguments for his right to not comply with the APA because the APA and EPM statutes conflict.
“[The APA] unambiguously states that all agencies are subject to the APA’s rulemaking procedures unless ‘expressly exempted,’” stated Gard. “The APA and EPM statutes impose duties on the Secretary that may require him to begin promulgating the EPM earlier, but they are not inconsistent, do not directly conflict, and do not create impossible barriers to complying with both.”
Gard further ruled Fontes violated the APA by not allowing public comment on the proposed EPM for the full 30 days, instead only opening up review for 15 days.
Gard noted at the end of her ruling that she wouldn’t address other claims by the Republican National Committee challenging eight specific provisions of the EPM, since she arrived at the conclusion that Fontes’ promulgation of the 2023 EPM failed to “substantially comply” with requirements set forth by the APA for the rulemaking process.
The Republican Party of Arizona (AZGOP) sued Fontes over the EPM last February, along with the Arizona legislature leadership at the time (Senate President Warren Petersen and then-House Speaker Ben Toma) and the Arizona Free Enterprise Club. In a statement on Thursday’s ruling, the AZGOP claimed the appeals court found the EPM to be unconstitutional.
AZGOP Chair Gina Swoboda said the ruling confirmed the extent of the unlawfulness of Fontes’ EPM in the Thursday statement. Swoboda characterized Fontes and his EPM as an attempt “from the radical left to illegally assume control” of Arizona elections.
“This opinion from the court shows just how much Secretary Fontes and his allies in the Governor’s and Attorney General’s offices overreached in their partisan efforts to hijack our elections through this blatantly political manual,” said Swoboda. “As we have highlighted to the court, the most-recent elections manual contained many provisions that ran utterly contrary to Arizona law, giving the Democrat machine a clear advantage at the ballot box for years to come.”
Beyond the lack of compliance with APA, GOP leaders’ objections to the Fontes EPM concerned conflicts with state election law: accepting voters who declared themselves noncitizens on juror questionnaires; allowing voters who failed to submit or couldn’t achieve verification of their Documentary Proof of Citizenship (DPOC); allowing first-time, federal-only voters to provide only an ID and not DPOC for mail-in voting; not requiring county recorders to check federal databases for citizenship reviews; restricting public review of voter signatures on mail ballots; allowing Active Early Voting List voters to receive ballots outside the state for certain elections; requiring denial of early ballot challenges received prior to the return of an early ballot; and allowing out-of-precinct voters to cast provisional ballots.
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by Staff Reporter | Oct 29, 2024 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Maricopa County says its current election plan is adequate to ensure everyone will have an opportunity to vote in this election, despite additional reports of long voting lines and wait times.
The county board of supervisors and recorder’s office issued their assurance through the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office (MCAO) last Friday in response to a Thursday letter from GOP congressional candidate Abraham Hamadeh and the Republican National Committee (RNC) requesting a new election plan.
Deputy County Attorney Joseph E. La Rue issued the response letter on behalf of MCAO. LaRue began his letter with a remark aimed at the author of the Hamadeh-RNC letter, Harmeet Dhillon, for submitting the letter to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Maricopa County Recorder’s Office rather than MCAO.
“We do not know how they do things in California, where you are barred,” said La Rue. “But here in Arizona, it is an ethical violation for an attorney to communicate about the subject of her representation of her client with someone that the attorney knows is represented.”
As the Arizona Daily Independent reported, the Hamadeh-RNC letter claimed that it took voters longer on average to complete their ballots than the county predicted: an average of 15 minutes compared with the county’s 12-minute estimate, due to the ballot consisting of two pages.
La Rue responded that this comparison was “inaccurate” because it was based “on outdated information.” La Rue further dismissed Dhillon’s reliance on Verity Vote data, characterizing it as a “discredited organization that has been shown to play fast and loose with the facts” based on VoteBeat reporting.
La Rue clarified that the board of supervisors had expanded the in-person voting plan during its September 9 meeting to accommodate the two-page ballot.
La Rue also defended the county’s decision on the number of voting locations, check-in stations, and voting booths. He reported that the county had expanded the numbers of these election components adequately from past elections: a 40 percent increase since 2020 and a 10 percent increase since 2022 in voting locations; a 35 percent increase since 2020 and 33 percent increase since 2022 in check-in stations; and a 60 percent increase since 2020 and a 23 percent increase since 2022 in voting booths.
At the close of his response letter, La Rue concluded with a decisive “no” on the request from Hamadeh and the RNC to devise a new election plan.
“In light of the county’s extensive preparations for in-person voting on November 5, 2024, our clients do not see the need for an emergency meeting with your clients,” stated La Rue.
The county’s denial of a request for expanding election location capacities, such as establishing additional voting booths, came ahead of Monday reports from the media and individual voters on long wait times and lengthy lines for in-person early voting.
Maricopa County has warned that it could take them anywhere from 10 to 13 days to count all the ballots, due to the nearly 2.1 million mail-in ballots requested in this election. The county came up with the timeline based on the percentage of voters who waited to turn in their early ballots closer to or on Election Day in the 2022 election — almost 20 percent.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Matthew Holloway | Oct 29, 2024 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
In partnership with the Republican National Committee (RNC), Republican Congressional candidate for Arizona’s 8th District Abe Hamadeh has issued a letter to Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer. In the letter, Hamadeh and the RNC called for an emergency meeting with the county election officials to review what they described as a “flawed Election Plan.”
In a post to X sharing the letter, Hamadeh wrote that the plan, “fails to account the time voters need to complete the FOUR-PAGE ballot, setting the stage for long lines & chaos on Election Day. I won’t tolerate an election system that disenfranchises the will of the people.”
In the three-page letter from Hamadeh and RNC attorney Harmeet Dhillon, they wrote, “We have received information indicating that voters will take significantly longer to complete their ballots than the estimates upon which the Maricopa County Election Plan is based, specifically the provisions related to Election Day voting. Our observations in the field confirm this concern.”
The letter explains, “The county’s current plan, which already expects long lines on Election Day, is based on the unlikely expectation that voters will only take up to a maximum of approximately 12 minutes to complete their ballots. Our information is that voters will take, and are now taking substantially longer to complete their ballots—averaging at least 15 minutes with a maximum that his much higher.”
Dhillon and Hamadeh further pointed out that there has been a significant decrease in the number of voting centers near Paradise Valley Community College, noting that the area has one of the highest turnout rates in the county.
They added, “This will mean dramatically longer lines than expected on election night. As you know, many voters will not be able to endure an hours-long wait to vote, effectively disenfranchising them if the lines grow too long.”
As previously reported by AZ Free News, there has been a serious decrease in the amount of polling centers made available to the county election officials due to limitations in security features and concerns over potential violence and damage in the 2024 election. In the area served by one Phoenix area school district, the number of polling stations has dropped from 17 to one, housed in a secured District office replete with barbed-wire fencing, security gates, and badge-only access, “one step below Fort Knox.”
According to a study from the America First Policy Institute, an analysis of precinct-level data in six Arizona counties from the 2022 election in Arizona revealed “some precincts where there were more ballots being counted than there were registered voters listed as casting ballots and some precincts where the reverse occurred,” as printing errors and long-lines plagued polling centers throughout the state. The total number of discrepancies was well over 8,000 ballots. And as the AFPI notes, the race for Attorney General, in which Hamadeh was defeated, was decided by a razor-thin margin of 280 votes.
The 2022 issue and potential 2024 problems could be quite similar as Yavapai County’s Registrar of Voters Office explained to the Institute’s researchers:
“If a voter checks in on Election Day but walks out with their ballot (does not put it in the ballot box), they will be listed as voted because they signed the register but there will not be a ballot to tabulate.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Daniel Stefanski | Oct 21, 2024 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
National and local Republicans are pulling out all the stops to protect election integrity in the critical swing-state of Arizona for the upcoming November contest.
Last week, the Donald J. Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced the creation of a new Election Integrity team in Arizona. The team will be shepherded by Harmeet Dhillon. According to the press release issued by the coalition, the team “will stop Democrat interference and secure Arizona’s elections.”
“We are proud to announce President Trump’s appointment of Harmeet Dhillon as our new legal counsel in Arizona,” said Trump Campaign Managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita and RNC Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-Chair Lara Trump. “She will spearhead critical legal battles, stop the many attacks on the integrity of our elections, and lead our winning election integrity team to Protect the Vote. Election Integrity is the top priority for President Trump, his campaign, and the RNC, and with a fair and secure election Arizona will send President Trump back to the White House. Harmeet is an unmatched force for Election Integrity and will lead the fight, and win, to secure Arizona’s elections – for our country’s most important election.”
Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Gina Swoboda added, “Arizona is the battleground for this election, and Harmeet is ready to lead the fight. We are committed to an honest and secure election system, that counts every legal vote properly. Arizonans, and Americans, deserve nothing less, and we are full steam ahead in our unprecedented dedication to Election Integrity.”
After the revelation about her appointment, Dhillon said, “I’m happy to report that after meeting and speaking with state party and candidates and outside volunteer groups and Arizona lawyers, we are in better shape this cycle than ever before and on a strong legal and political footing for Republican victory in AZ.”
Early voting in Arizona is now officially underway across the state with ballots hitting mailboxes and voters frequenting sites to cast their ballots ahead of the November 5 General Election. Besides the contest for President of the United States, Arizona features other pivotal races, including U.S. Senate, state legislature seats that could determine party control of either chamber, and constitutional amendments with key implications for the future of the state.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Feb 19, 2024 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
If Adrian Fontes likes spending time in court, he’s going to have a fun time in 2024. In case you’ve lost count, Arizona’s Secretary of State has been sued three times over his Elections Procedures Manual (EPM) in just the last two weeks. That’s what happens when you produce one of the most radical EPMs in Arizona’s history.
At the end of January, Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma filed a lawsuit against Fontes over a variety of provisions in his EPM that violate or conflict with current election laws in our state. But the party was just getting started.
Last week, the Arizona Republican Party, the Republican National Committee, and the Yavapai County GOP also sued Fontes for his blatant attempt to rewrite election law through his EPM. And on the same day, we filed our own lawsuit against Fontes over the promulgation of certain unlawful rules set forth in his EPM.
The reality is that, in his role as Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes is supposed to provide an EPM that gives impartial direction to county recorders to ensure uniform and correct implementation of election law. Instead, he prescribed certain rules without the power to do so and moved forward with an EPM that contains several “rules” that are unconstitutional.
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