Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes visited Washington, D.C., on Wednesday and told lawmakers that embattled election administrators need more support from Congress.
Fontes told the Senate Rules and Administration Committee about the problems Arizona counties have faced retaining and recruiting qualified election employees. He said that 12 out of 15 Arizona counties have lost senior election personnel since 2020 and that election administrators have faced increased threats and harassment based on misinformation about past elections.
“It almost defies common sense that we have people that want to get into these jobs but for the fact that these are the jobs that preserve our democracy,” he said.
Fontes referenced the story of an unnamed former county recorder, alleging her dog was poisoned “as a means of intimidation.”
'We don’t feel safe in our work'
“As a former county recorder myself, I can attest that the pre-2020 world for election administrators is gone,” he said. “We don’t feel safe in our work, because of the harassment and threats that are based in lies.”
Fontes told senators the local jurisdictions that run elections need more sustained and predictable federal funding to support election administration, cybersecurity and efforts to combat misinformation.
“You wouldn’t want to underfund the dam that you live a half a mile down the river from when you live at the bottom of the valley … but we are in so many ways not really paying as close attention to this particular part of our democracy,” Fontes said.
A day after Fontes appeared before the Senate committee, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs allocated $2.3 million in federal COVID-19 relief money to support election administration across the state, including $1 million toward addressing problems caused by the exodus of experienced election officials across the state.
