Arizona

Arizona: Maricopa County recorder threatens felony charges over ‘unauthorized’ drop boxes ahead of primary election | Sasha Hupka/Votebeat

A messy and longstanding feud between Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors over control of the key swing county’s elections has spilled over into a new arena. On Wednesday, Heap sent a letter to the board asserting his office’s authority over ballot drop boxes and warning that election workers who handle ballots deposited in “unauthorized” receptacles could face criminal penalties. The letter, written by Heap’s attorney, arrived hours before county supervisors were set to take up a routine vote on drop box locations for the July 21 primary. It set the stage for a lengthy and fiery meeting that put the divisions between the county’s mostly GOP officials on full display. The spiraling saga is amplifying questions about how effectively top county officials will be able to administer this year’s midterm election. Read Article

Arizona: DOJ argues ruling that blocked voter data request would have undermined civil rights | Jonathan Shorman/Stateline

The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday suggested to a federal appeals court that upholding a lower court decision blocking the Trump administration’s access to sensitive voter data would weaken its ability to investigate racial discrimination in voting. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held oral arguments on whether to reverse a district court judge’s opinion that Michigan doesn’t have to provide the Justice Department with its unredacted voter list that contains dates of birth, driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers. At the core of the case is how federal courts should interpret the 1960 Civil Rights Act, which grants the U.S. attorney general broad access to documents and records that “come into the possession” of election officials. Congress passed the law to empower investigations into voting discrimination against Black citizens. A lawyer for the Trump administration on Wednesday sought to discredit the logic behind the district court judge’s decision. He said the decision would have hampered 1960s era investigations into discrimination against Black voters if it had been in place at that time. An assistant Michigan attorney general called that a major misreading of the law. Read Article

Arizona: Judge strikes down rule requiring counties to aid voters who go to wrong polling place | Sasha Hupka/Votebeat

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes can’t force election officials to provide a way for voters who show up at the wrong polling place to cast a valid ballot, according to a new court decision striking down a key provision of the state’s election rulebook. In 2023, Fontes wrote a policy into the state’s election procedures manual directing counties that assign voters to polling places to allow out-of-precinct voters to cast their ballots on accessible voting devices, which state and federal law requires must be available at every polling place for voters with disabilities. Before that, voters had no way to cast a valid ballot if they showed up at the wrong polling location. Weeks before the 2024 election, Fontes, a Democrat, sued Pinal County, a bright-red jurisdiction sandwiched between Phoenix and Tucson, for failing to comply with the new policy. A Pinal County Superior Court judge ruled that the county was violating state law by not following the rule, but declined to force it to comply in that election. Later, the Arizona Supreme Court similarly ruled that it was far too close to the election to compel the county to change course. Since then, the two sides have continued to fight the issue in court. Read Article

Arizona: Judge thwarts Trump administration’s attempt to access voter rolls | Gabrielle Canon/The Guardian

An attempt by the Trump administration to gain access to Arizona’s detailed voter records was thwarted by the courts on Tuesday, when a federal judge dismissed the US justice department’s lawsuit against the state. The ruling marks the latest legal setback in an unprecedented nationwide effort by the administration before the midterm elections to collect sensitive information about tens of millions of Americans. The justice department has sued at least 30 states and the District of Columbia seeking to force release of the data, which includes dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial social security numbers. The US district judge Susan Brnovich, a Trump appointee, ruled that Arizona’s statewide voter registration list was “not a document subject to request by the Attorney General” under federal law. The judge dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice because, she wrote, “amendment would be legally futile”. Read Article

Arizona: Conservative groups lose appeal of election overhaul lawsuit | Caitlin Sievers/Arizona Mirror

An appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit from conservative groups that challenged how Arizona counties verify early ballot signatures and run ballot drop-boxes, among other things. Brought by the America First Legal Foundation and the Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona on behalf of a group of voters, the lawsuit rehashed numerous claims that election deniers have made unsuccessfully in court for years. The conservative groups argued that Maricopa, Yavapai and Coconino counties illegally used unstaffed ballot drop boxes, canceled voter registrations and used improper procedures to verify voter signatures on vote-by-mail ballot envelopes. The America First Legal Foundation was created by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of Project 2025 and one of President Donald Trump’s closest advisors. The Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona, which mostly operates under the name EZAZ, is run by conservative political operative Merissa Caldwell, formerly Merissa Hamilton. The Arizona Court of Appeals on Wednesday affirmed a Yavapai County Superior Court judge’s 2025 decision to dismiss the case. Read Article

Arizona: Apache County will use vote center model after years of concern over ballot rejections on Navajo Nation | Sasha Hupka/Votebeat

After years of lobbying by tribal officials, Apache County will move to a new voting model for the upcoming midterm election, a shift expected to reduce the number of tribal voters’ ballots rejected because they were cast in the wrong precinct. The county, located in the remote, northeastern corner of Arizona, oversees voting in large swaths of the Navajo Nation and the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. For years, it has used a precinct-based model in which voters are assigned polling places based on the voting district, or precinct, in which they reside. But tribal voters often don’t have standard street addresses, and county, precinct, and reservation lines often crisscross. That means a voters’ assigned polling place may not be the closest or most intuitive location, and the vast distances and lack of transportation on tribal land mean it often isn’t easy to redirect voters to the correct site. Read Article

Arizona voters can now show ID to get their mail ballots counted faster | Sasha Hupka/Votebeat

In Arizona, voters have long had the option of dropping off their mail ballots at polling places. Under state law, voters must show identification to cast ballots in person, but those dropping off ballots are allowed to skip that step — as well as any associated lines at the polls. Instead, they just have to sign the envelope that contains their ballot and place it in a secure box at the polling site. Trained staff later compare that signature to signatures the voter has on file before counting their vote. That process, called signature verification, is a key safeguard against fraud. But it also takes time — and as the state has morphed into a key electoral battleground, there has been increasing consternation with how long it takes to count so-called “late early” ballots dropped off in the final hours of voting. In 2024, state lawmakers passed legislation requiring election officials to offer a new option. Like Flahive, voters in the upcoming midterm election will have the option to wait in line and show a driver’s license, passport, or similar form of identification, instead of dropping their ballot off to go through signature verification. This option would allow their votes to be processed sooner and counted more quickly. Read Article

Arizona: Hand count immunity denied to Mohave County supervisor by Arizona Supreme Court | Howard Fischer/Arizona Capitol Times

Mohave County Supervisor Ron Gould isn’t going to get immunity for the next time he wants to hand count ballots. In a brief order, the Arizona Supreme Court refused to disturb a decision by the state Court of Appeals that Gould is entitled to such an order. That ends the case. But Gould said it really doesn’t resolve the matter. He pointed out that the ruling against him never addressed the question of whether he — or any supervisor from any county — is free to pursue a hand count without what he says are “threats and intimidation” by Attorney General Kris Mayes. Instead, the appellate judges said he had no standing to ask the court to prospectively grant him immunity because he has yet to get the supervisors to pursue a hand count, one that Mayes has said is illegal and told the board “may result” in criminal penalties. Read Article

Arizona: Federal appeals court tosses GOP lawsuit seeking to purge 1.27 million voters | Jerod MacDonald-Evoy/Arizona Mirror

A federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling that tossed out a lawsuit by Arizona Republicans that accused the state of violating federal law and sought to purge up to 1.27 million voters from the rolls. In 2024, then-Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Gina Swoboda, who is now running for the nomination of her party for Secretary of State, along with Arizona Free Enterprise Club President Scot Mussi and unsuccessful 2018 Republican Secretary of State candidate Steve Gaynor sued Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and accused the state of violating the National Voter Registration Act. The lawsuit claimed that Fontes failed to purge over a million ineligible and unaccounted for voters from the state’s registration rolls, costing the Arizona Republican Party time and resources on voter education and mobilization claims. However, a trial court judge concluded that they had no standing to sue. On Tuesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. Read Article

Arizona Is Now at the Center of Election Investigations | Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Sarah Fitzpatrick, and Nick Miroff/The Atlantic

Kristi Noem was fighting to keep her job, she held an election-security event at a Homeland Security Investigations field office in Scottsdale, Arizona. In the past, she said, the state had been an “absolute disaster on elections,” and ensuring the security of election equipment was her responsibility. She also urged Congress to pass President Trump’s voter-ID bill. The message was less surprising than the location. HSI, the agency’s investigative branch, devotes most of its efforts to going after transnational drug cartels and human-trafficking networks, not to securing domestic elections.A week after the event, Arizona’s acting special agent in charge for HSI, Matthew Murphy, told the state attorney general’s office that his office was now probing the 2020 election in Arizona, according to a person familiar with the details of the meeting. A state investigator asked why the government was scrutinizing the results, given that they had already been litigated and investigated. Murphy made clear that he was acting on “direction from D.C.,” the person told us, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The HSI investigation in Arizona, which has not previously been reported, comes as the FBI has embarked on a separate election probe in the state. “This is not a joint investigation” with HSI, a person familiar with the FBI investigation told us. HSI headquarters and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice are coordinating the investigation, which is focused on identifying alleged voter-fraud activity and related potential enforcement actions, according to a person familiar with the effort. Read Article

Arizona officials want county recorders to tell them if they get a subpoena amid ongoing federal probes of state’s elections | Sasha Hupka/Votebeat

Arizona’s top law enforcement official and chief election officer are warning county officials not to hand over full, unredacted voter files to the federal government amid probes by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security into the state’s 2020 election. Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes — both Democrats — wrote in a joint letter to county recorders that disclosure of such materials to the U.S Department of Justice would “violate both federal and state law.” They urged the recorders, who control voter registration data, to “fulfill your oath by declining any such illegal demands.” Mayes and Fontes stopped short of promising litigation against anyone who gave voter information to the federal agencies, though they hinted at it. “Our offices are committed to upholding the sanctity of Arizona’s elections and democratic process,” the letter read. “We will pursue to the fullest extent of the law all possible remedies to ensure the integrity of Arizona’s elections and the privacy rights of its citizens.” Read Article

Arizona: Cochise County asks feds to investigate disputed claims about voting machine testing — again | Sasha Hupka/Votebeat

Four years after a conservative southeastern Arizona county tried to defy election laws, it may be gearing up to do so again. The Cochise County Board of Supervisors voted on Feb. 24 to send a letter to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard asking her to investigate whether the laboratories charged with testing voting machines nationwide were properly accredited ahead of recent elections. Cochise County officials have doubted the laboratories for years, despite the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s reassurances that they were properly accredited. Those doubts were part of what prompted two of the county’s supervisors to vote to delay the certification of its election results past the legal deadline in November 2022. A judge ultimately ordered the supervisors to certify the midterm election results, but their doubts about the laboratories — and the voting machines they test — have apparently persisted. The board sent an identical message to the U.S. Department of Justice less than six months ago. Read Article

Arizona’s ICE-at-polls bill is dead for now, but backers can revive it | Caitlin Sievers/Arizona Mirror

People packed into an Arizona Senate Committee room on Friday, waiting hours to protest a Republican plan to station federal immigration officers at Arizona polling places in November. But those protestors were disappointed when the measure was suddenly spiked at the end of the six-hour meeting because its sponsor was ill, according to Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee Chairwoman Wendy Rogers. The failure to hear the bill in the committee on Friday likely kills the specific piece of legislation, though the idea is likely to be resurrected. Friday was the deadline for legislative committees to consider legislation in its chamber of origin. But there are parliamentary moves that allow proposals that failed to be revived. Read Article

Arizona: ICE at the polls: Republicans push plan to require agents at all polling places | Jerod MacDonald-Evoy/Arizona Mirror

Polling shows that Americans want to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement following the murders of two American citizens in Minnesota amid a violent surge to round up immigrants as part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, but Arizona Republicans want to require ICE officers to be stationed at polling places this year. This week, the Arizona Senate will take up a proposal to force all 15 of the state’s counties to sign an agreement with ICE “to provide for a federal immigration law enforcement presence at each location within this state where ballots are cast or deposited.” The Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee is slated to take up the strike-everything amendment to Senate Bill 1570 either Wednesday or Friday. (The committee has scheduled nearly 60 bills for hearings over the two meetings, but it’s unknown which measures will be considered on which day. This is the final week for legislative committees to hear bills.) Read Article

Arizona primary to move up 2 weeks under bipartisan legislation | Sasha Hupka/Votebeat

Arizona will permanently move up its state primary election date under a new law that will also give voters more time to fix signature problems on early ballots and codify where party observers may watch election activity. The Arizona House voted unanimously on Feb. 2 to pass the legislation, which will move the primary from the first Tuesday in August to the second-to-last Tuesday in July. That will ensure that election officials can meet federally mandated deadlines to send out general election ballots to military and overseas voters, even if a statewide recount delays the finalization of the primary results. The legislation passed the Arizona Senate with a similarly bipartisan vote on Thursday, and was signed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs on Friday. The 2026 primary election date will now move from Aug. 4 to July 21. Read Article

Arizona has lost more top election officials than any western state since 2020 | Jerod MacDonald-Evoy/Arizona Mirror

In the five years since the 2020 presidential election, during which Republicans sowed doubt in election systems by spreading evidence-free “fraud” claims, a new report shows that Arizona counties have had more turnover in local election administration than any other western state. In fact, all 15 of Arizona’s counties have experienced turnover in at least one chief election position. The report by Issue One, a nonpartisan political reform nonprofit, shows that all 15 of Arizona’s counties experienced turnover, with the vast majority of them leaving due to personal reasons. After Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020, the Grand Canyon State became an epicenter for bogus election fraud claims manufactured by Donald Trump’s supporters. That led to things like the Arizona Senate’s sham “audit” of the 2020 presidential election — even though it was run by vocal Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists, it turned up no evidence of fraud — and efforts by candidates to overturn their election losses, often citing unfounded claims of fraud. Read Article

Arizona GOP leaders ask Arizona’s high court to let counties reject election results | Howard Fischer/Arizona Daily Star

The state’s top two Republican lawmakers are asking the Arizona Supreme Court to rule that county supervisors don’t have to accept the vote total figures they get from election officials. In a new filing, attorneys for Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Steve Montenegro argue that supervisors have “discretion” to determine whether to certify the vote tallies as official. To rule otherwise, they said, would “transform the boards into rubber stamps.” The pair is specifically suing Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes. He produced an Elections Procedure Manual which said that the duty of the supervisors, in essence, is strictly ministerial: Take the report given to them by the county employees who have run the election and declare them valid. What makes that important is the manual has the force of law, complete with criminal penalties for violations. Read Article

Arizona: In ‘uncertain times,’ lawmakers introduce bill to improve voting access, cybersecurity | Colin Wood/StateScoop

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes on Wednesday announced new legislation that would seek to improve voting access and provide funding to improve the cybersecurity of state and county election systems. During a press conference, Fontes called the legislation, called the Voters First Act, a “research-based, common-sense proposal to modernize, standardize and prioritize the voting process across all 15 counties in Arizona.” The act, which was introduced by Democratic party leaders in both houses Wednesday, includes statewide restoration of Arizona’s permanent early vote list, which allows voters to receive ballots by mail for early voting, and applies the state’s 75-foot “voter protection zone” to ballot drop boxes and voting locations. It would extend the early voting period, allow the state to accept private grant funding to educate the public about the basic facts of statewide elections and allow ballots to be collected and processed continually on election day, for faster results. Read Article

Arizona Democrats say election transparency bills will jeopardize security | Joe Duhownik/Courthouse News Service

Arizona’s Senate Elections Committee moved to support a handful of bills that would increase public access to voter records, though Democrats say the measures would lead to safety concerns by publishing personal voter information. The elections committee, chaired by Flagstaff Republican Wendy Rogers, voted 4-2 to pass two bills that Republicans say will increase transparency. Senate Bill 1038 would require a county recorder to make publicly available the full, unredacted vote cast record after an election. Senate Bill 1040 would require the full, unredacted voter registration roll to be made downloadable via an internet portal. In July, a state judge ruled that full vote cast records are not public records according to current law. Read Article

Arizona Legislature scrutinizes new elections manual, potential for litigation looms | Kiera Riley/Arizona Capitol Times

With the 2025 Elections Procedures Manual in effect, the Legislature is now taking a fine-toothed comb to each provision, potentially teeing up another round of litigation. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, Attorney General Kris Mayes and Gov. Katie Hobbs all signed off on the 2025 Elections Procedures Manual on Dec. 23, bringing to a close the odd-year process of promulgating a playbook for election workers and officials. But as the 2025 EPM takes effect, ongoing litigation over the prior draft puts some provisions in limbo, and a new set of eyes could spark another round of legal challenges. Per state law, the secretary of state, in consultation with county election officials, must draft a new manual every odd-numbered year and seal it with a final sign-off from the governor and attorney general. Read Article

Arizona: Appeals court deals final blow to GOP’s elections rulebook challenge | Caitlin Sievers/AZ Mirror

After nearly two years of court rulings, with wins and losses on both sides, one of the Republican challenges to Arizona’s elections rulebook is finally finished. On Dec. 5, the Arizona Court of Appeals dismissed a legal challenge to the state’s 2023 Election Procedures Manual that had been brought by the Republican National Committee, the Arizona Republican Party and the Yavapai County Republican Party. Every two years, the secretary of state is tasked with creating a new EPM, outlining procedures and rules for county elections officials to implement state election laws when they conduct elections in the state. The manual carries the force of law, and must be approved by the governor and attorney general — offices both currently held by Democrats — before it’s published. Read Article

Arizona: Lawsuit seeks change to Independent Party’s name | Ray Stern/Arizona Republic

The decision to let the state's No Labels Party change its name to the Arizona Independent Party should be declared unlawful and reversed, a new lawsuit demands. Citing worries of "a virtual certainty of substantial voter confusion and frustration," the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission's suit targets Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who made the October decision to make the name change official on Dec. 1. The commission, which filed the lawsuit Dec. 2 in Maricopa County Superior Court, charges that Fontes' decision interferes with the agency's duties to support candidates and educate voters and election officials, violating the 1998 Citizens Clean Elections Act that created the agency. The commission oversees public campaign financing for eligible candidates and provides voter education, including organizing candidate debates. Read Article

Arizona proposal would end automatic mail ballots for early-voter list | Gary Grado/Votebeat

A Republican state lawmaker who is also running for secretary of state has introduced a proposed ballot measure that would overhaul early voting in Arizona by eliminating the early-voter list, shortening the time to cast early ballots, and requiring proof of citizenship to receive an early ballot. State Rep. Alex Kolodin, who as a lawmaker and a former lawyer for the Arizona Republican Party has pushed to abolish the state’s early-voter list, said in a press release that he’s pushing legislation to put the measure on the ballot because “Arizonans are tired of excuses and chaos on Election Day.” Some provisions of his proposed measure are already in state law, including a poll closing time of 7 p.m. on Election Day and a voter ID requirement. Read Article

Arizona: Johnson to Seat Grijalva, Seven Weeks After She Was Elected | Anushka Patil/ The New York Times

Speaker Mike Johnson plans to swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva of Arizona as a member of Congress on Wednesday, according to his office, 50 days after her election, as the House returns from an extended recess. Ms. Grijalva, a Democrat, won a special election on Sept. 23 for the Arizona seat left vacant by the death of her father, Representative Raúl Grijalva. Mr. Johnson had since refused to seat her, despite several opportunities to do so, public pleas, a Democratic pressure campaign and, eventually, a federal lawsuit brought by Ms. Grijalva and the attorney general of Arizona that argued that Mr. Johnson had no authority to continue to stall. The delay prevented Ms. Grijalva from freely entering and moving about the Capitol complex, or having access to the budget or the materials she needed to do her job. As recently as Tuesday afternoon, she told NPR that she had not heard directly from Mr. Johnson’s office about the swearing-in and that she was “90 percent” confident it would happen at last. She said on social media on Monday that she was traveling to Washington after hearing from news reports and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, that she could soon be seated. Read Article

Arizona: Judge won’t halt audit of Maricopa County voter registration system | Gary Grado/Votebeat

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Thursday rejected Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap’s request to halt an audit of the county’s voter registration system and election technology.Judge Scott Blaney wrote that he was initially concerned voters’ personal information would be at risk, but was “credibly informed” that the county and vendor had a comprehensive nondisclosure agreement and the vendor’s personnel had undergone background checks. Blaney also found “that the Recorder has not established that the Board’s actions with regard to the assessment violate any Arizona statute.”What’s the dispute? The emergency hearing over the audit of the voter registration system on Monday was one part of a larger legal fight between Heap and the county Board of Supervisors over how election duties and authority should be divided between them. Read Article

Arizona: Johnson sets record refusing to swear in Adelita Grijalva for 36 days after she won election | Caitlin Sievers/Arizona Mirror

U.S. Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva unwillingly set a record on Wednesday with her 36-day wait to be sworn in to represent the state’s 7th Congressional District.The Tucson Democrat easily won a Sept. 23 special election in the deep blue southern Arizona district formerly represented by her father Raúl Grijalva, who died of cancer in March. But Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives has refused to swear in Grijalva, using a range of excuses, the most frequent of which is the federal government shutdown, which began Oct. 1. Read Article

Arizona Supreme Court hands Democrats win on election policy, but GOP changes still possible | Ray Stern/Arizona Republic

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes praised a recent decision by the state Supreme Court that gives him more control over election policies, calling a lawsuit that prompted the ruling a political ploy. The Oct. 16 decision declared that the Arizona Administrative Procedure Act, a comprehensive set of rules found in state law governing the workings of state agencies, cannot bind the creation of the state's Elections Procedures Manual. The elections policy manual is updated every two years by the Secretary of State's Office. It serves as a guidebook to election policy in the state but must comply with state and federal law. Once approved by the governor and state attorney general, it's a crime to deviate from it during elections. Read Article

Arizona says it will sue Mike Johnson if he does not swear in new rep – and likely trigger the release of the Epstein files | Joe Sommerlad/The Independent

House Speaker Mike Johnson has been threatened with legal action by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes over his ongoing failure to swear in her state’s new Democratic congresswoman-elect, Adelita Grijalva. Grijalva, 54, won a special election in Arizona’s 7th congressional district on September 23, comfortably beating Republican Daniel Butierez by picking up 69 percent of the vote to his 29 percent, and will, eventually, succeed her late father, Raul Grijalva, who passed away in March. In a letter sent to the speaker on Tuesday, Mayes wrote: “Arizona’s right to a full delegation, and the right of the residents of CD 7 to representation from the person they recently voted for, are not up for debate and may not be delayed or used as leverage in negotiations about unrelated legislation.” Read Article

Arizona Election rulebook submitted for approval despite threatened GOP lawsuit | Jerod MacDonald-Evoy/Arizona Mirror

The Election Procedures Manual, which must be revised and approved every two years, has undergone changes after previous Republican lawsuits challenged provisions in it. Some of those changes included deleted examples of what constitutes voter intimidation and deleting a paragraph saying that the secretary of state could finalize the state’s election results without a particular county’s results if the officials missed the state deadline. “Every voter, in every corner of Arizona, should have the same fair and secure election process,” Fontes said in a statement Wednesday about the submission. “The EPM makes that possible.” The manual also aims to try to alleviate ballot printing errors that have plagued election officials in recent years. Both Hobbs and Mayes must sign off on the EPM by December for it to take effect. Read Article

Arizona: Federal court blocks election manual’s rule on voter intimidation | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

A panel of judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ rules restricting activity around polling places cannot be enforced. The judges let stand another rule related to what happens if counties don’t certify their election results. The ruling will shape Arizona’s next Election Procedures Manual, which instructs election officials on how to comply with state election laws. While Fontes already released a new draft manual for the 2026 elections, he will be revising the rules until they are approved by the attorney general and governor by the end of this year. Read Article