UPDATE: The Secretary of State's Office now said the final Elections Procedures Manual was still not available as of 3 p.m. A spokesman said the secretary of state is working collaboratively with the governor and Arizona Attorney General's Office to complete the document and will have the manual out by the Dec. 31 deadline.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes plans to release the state’s new Elections Procedures Manual on Friday ahead of a Dec. 31 deadline.
The law requires the Secretary of State to produce a new elections manual every two years to provide counties with a rulebook of instructions for administering elections. The new manual must be approved by the governor and Arizona attorney general before it goes into effect.
Fontes’ office confirmed the EPM “is tentatively scheduled to be released tomorrow.”
A spokesman for Attorney General Kris Mayes said she has signed off on Fontes’ new manual. A spokesman for Governor Katie Hobbs did not respond to a request for comment.
Fontes published a draft copy of the new manual in August, eliciting criticism from Republicans and praise from Democrats.
Arizona has not had a new elections procedures manual since 2019 despite a law signed that year that required the Secretary of State to produce a new manual in every odd numbered year.
In 2021, former Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, refused to sign off on the manual authored by then-Secretary Hobbs, a Democrat, over portions of the manual that Brnovich wanted to cut.
A Yavapai County Superior Court judge rejected Brnovich’s lawsuit seeking to force Hobbs to comply with his proposed changes.
