
Jen Fifield
Reporter
Jen Fifield previously covered Maricopa County and Phoenix for The Arizona Republic, including the high-profile review of the county’s 2020 election. Prior to that, she covered politics and government for local newspapers in Maryland and state policy for Stateline, a news service run by The Pew Charitable Trusts. She has won several regional press awards in Arizona and Maryland for her investigative, feature, politics and education reporting. Jen is a Phoenix native and graduated from Arizona State University’s Cronkite School.
Local Labs seeks voter data through extensive requests — and blurs the line between political research and journalism.
The untold story of how the quest for election fraud evidence led to a virtual manhunt in Maricopa County.
Maricopa County Supervisors Chairman Clint Hickman describes death threat’s effect on him and family, while perpetrator says he was misled by election lies.
Cochise County won’t contract with Authentix, a company that partnered with Mark Finchem to try to make its ballot security products mandatory.
Republicans and voting rights advocates are unhappy with secretary of state’s proposed instructions on hand-counting ballots and voter intimidation.
Cochise County is set to launch a $1 million pilot to test secure features on ballots and hire a firm that has pushed the idea with former state Rep. Mark Finchem.
New report shows the Arizona county claims ignorance of ballot printers’ limits prior to midterm election problems, but OKI says its manual explained it all.
The debate over legality is pulling attention from the well-known problems that crop up when trying to hand-count ballots, an especially challenging task in a presidential election.
Unlike other high-profile resignations of election officials across the country, Pinal County Elections Director Geraldine Roll resigned under deep scrutiny.
Fontes’ draft of the Elections Procedures Manual, which strips much of what Gov. Katie Hobbs had in the latest 2019 version, will need to be approved by Hobbs and the attorney general by the end of the year.
A new $29 million elections center will multiply the amount of room for processing and tabulating ballots and increasing security.
Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told the county’s supervisors in a letter Tuesday that he’s concerned moving forward would put the county’s election officials in “serious legal jeopardy.”
As the county plans an expensive purchase, experts say stronger regulations over ballot printers would help prevent the problems voters saw in November.
Pinal County’s inaccurate counts in 2022 were caused by human error. Counting ballots by hand won’t prevent that again.
Everything you need to know about Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli’s letter asserting the Legislature has “plenary authority” over how elections are run.
Lake and Abe Hamadeh get to argue their election challenges again this week. Here’s why the cases have dragged on so long — and what harm voting advocates say they continue to cause.
It took a statewide recount to ensure all ballots were counted correctly in Arizona’s midterm election. Experts say these four fixes would help improve accuracy in the future.
Virginia Ross had proof of inaccuracies that she didn’t flag before county supervisors certified the November election results, even as she told them she stood by the numbers — and then collected a $25,000 bonus.
Candidate was chosen by the Cochise County recorder who pushed for illegal hand counting of ballots and doubts the security of election equipment.
Republican supervisors of the southern Arizona county said they were not concerned that Bob Bartelsmeyer shared posts falsely claiming the 2020 presidential vote was rigged.
The report urges the county to replace the printers that couldn’t handle 2022’s heavy paper and long ballots.
After 2020, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer increased training for workers who review voter signatures, added an audit step in the process, and put more people on the job.
The veteran was not registered to vote and had been given documents showing as much before the 2022 election.
Even the Democratic secretary of state is a fan of Republican Sen. Ken Bennett’s bill to release digital images of cast ballots to the public.
Attorney General Kris Mayes calls the plan to empower election skeptic David Stevens an “unqualified handover.”
David Stevens, recorder of the southern Arizona county, will appoint the permanent elections director and take control of vote counting.
Maricopa County team includes retired Arizona Supreme Court justice, elections technology expert, and printer expert.
Under Attorney General Brnovich, Democrats called out the political agenda of the “election fraud unit.” Now, under Mayes, Republicans are saying the same.
Recorder David Stevens — a close ally to Mark Finchem — pursued the county’s illegal plan to hand count midterm ballots and stands to take more control of elections there.
Lisa Marra, who refused to cooperate with Republican officials’ illegal hand-count plan, describes a threatening work environment in letter to county.