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Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is walking back election rules that he said would better protect voters, after Republicans successfully challenged them in court.
In a draft rulebook for the state’s 2026 midterm elections, known as the Election Procedures Manual, released Friday, Fontes deleted examples of what constitutes illegal voter intimidation. He also deleted a paragraph that said the secretary of state could finalize the state’s election results without a particular county’s results, if that county’s officials missed the state deadline to finalize them.
The inclusion of those provisions in the previous edition of the manual, released in 2023 ahead of the 2024 elections, drew Republican lawsuits alleging that Fontes had exceeded his authority, and courts ruled against him.
Fontes, a Democrat, said that he has to follow court orders and that he believes the new version will still protect voters and the integrity of elections.
“We’re trying to walk the line between some of the crazy rulings that we’ve seen coming out of the court that seem to protect the First Amendment rights of people who would scream at voters in line, and those First Amendment rights of voters to peaceably assemble, with this new approach,” Fontes said.
Republican Senate President Warren Petersen said in a statement Friday that Republican lawmakers would review the draft closely. If Fontes is now in full compliance with the law, he said, “then we celebrate our win for election integrity.”
“Any attempt to stretch or rewrite the law through bureaucratic overreach will be met with strong legislative and legal scrutiny,” he said.
Along with appearing to adhere to the court rulings, Fontes’ draft manual includes some changes that voting rights groups have requested for years, such as detailing the rights of voters who don’t speak English well, and of incarcerated residents.
Fontes is also using this manual to try to help election officials avoid problems that have come up in recent elections, such as ballot printing errors.
And he has extended the public-comment period from 15 days for the last manual to 30 days for this one — until Aug. 31. The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that 15 days was too short. Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes, both Democrats, must sign off on the final version of the manual by December for it to take effect.
Changes to address rulings on Republican lawsuits
The voter intimidation and certification sections of the manual were among the most challenged provisions of the 2023 edition, which was the subject of several lawsuits from the Republican Party, the state’s Republican legislative leaders, and other Republican organizations.
The Election Procedures Manual sets the rules governing how election officials must follow state law, and those rules have the force of law — but cannot conflict with it. Judges ruled that Fontes exceeded his authority when making some rules in 2023, and they put other rules on hold until courts could address them after the 2024 election. Several challenges are still pending in court.
The 2023 manual prohibited actions that might be threatening, harassing, or intimidating, both inside and outside the 75-foot radius around a polling site where electioneering is prohibited. The new manual cites federal and state laws that prohibit voter intimidation, but does not attempt to restrict activity outside the 75-foot line. And while the 2023 manual gave an example of using “threatening, insulting or offensive language to a voter or poll worker,” the new manual deletes the words “insulting” and “offensive.”
On the secretary’s duty to certify the election, where the 2023 manual said that the secretary could finalize the results even if a county’s results are missing, the new manual simply says that the secretary can take all legal means to force a county to certify their election — such as getting a court order.
Fontes had attempted to strengthen this language after the 2022 midterm, when Cochise County supervisors delayed certifying the county’s results past the county’s legal deadline.
Fontes also extended the public comment period after the state appellate court ruled that state rulemaking procedures require a 30-day window. Fontes said his office’s legal opinion is that 30 days isn’t required, and it appealed the ruling to the Arizona Supreme Court. But Fontes said he heard that the public wanted more time to comment.
“So we’re like, you know, no harm, no foul. Let’s push it to 30 days,” Fontes said.
The manual also recognizes instances when the courts have ruled in Fontes favor, such as the timeline for removing voters from the state’s Active Early Voting List under a new law. The law requires counties to stop automatically sending mail ballots to voters who haven’t cast the ballot for two consecutive election cycles.
Republicans sought to have those removals begin in January 2025, but courts dismissed these complaints in the lawsuits. Fontes’ manual says the first time voters will be removed under the new law is after the 2026 election cycle, in January 2027.
Changes in response to past problems
In response to problems in past elections, Fontes added what he called “best practices” to the manual.
This wasn’t to single out any county that experienced errors in the past, he said, but to provide new election officials with the guidance they needed, especially given the high turnover of election officials across the state.
For example, the manual says the election official should ensure that enough ballots are preprinted for use at voting locations. Pinal County ran out of preprinted ballots during its 2022 primary election.
Fontes added a new requirement for counties to train their poll workers on how to ensure their electronic pollbooks and ballot printers are working properly, after Maricopa County experienced widespread issues printing ballots in 2022 and Apache County dealt with printing problems last year.
After years of complaints from Navajo Nation advocates about problems with translations on tribal land, a problem Votebeat highlighted in an investigation last year, Fontes also reminded counties that they should be translating ballots and other voter materials into traditionally oral languages when necessary and required by federal law.
To comment on Fontes’ new manual, visit this page on the Secretary of State Office’s website.
Jen Fifield is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Jen at jfifield@votebeat.org.
