The Arizona Democratic Party is going to court to block the renaming of the No Labels Party, admitting in its legal filings that it believes the name change could harm its own candidates.
Attorney Roy Herrera contends that Secretary of State Adrian Fontes acted illegally in allowing it to use the name Arizona Independent Party. He said there is no legal authority for such a move.
Herrera said the issue goes beyond that narrow question.
“If permitted, this last-minute rebrand will sow chaos for Arizona's upcoming elections,” he said, causing confusion when someone registers to vote.
He said that Fontes, who is a Democrat, is telling county recorders that would-be voters who write “IND Party” must be registered as members of the Arizona Independent Party. But those who write “IND“ or “Independent” will be logged in as “Party Not Designated,” meaning they are true unaffiliated voters.
“In other words, in some cases the only distinction between voters who will be registered as Arizona Independent Party members and those who will be registered as unaffiliated is the lone word ‘Party,’” Herrera said.
One thing that makes that critical is true independent voters can cast ballots in either the Republican or Democratic primaries. But that's not true for those who might find themselves registered as members of the Arizona Independent Party, who will find they can choose only among candidates from that party.
What that also means for the Democratic Party, Herrera said, is that some people who really wanted to be true independents will no longer be able to sign petitions for Democratic candidates to get on the ballot or vote for them in the primary.
And there's something else.
Paul Johnson, who chairs the Arizona Independent Party, has acknowledged he wants the name change to make it easier for independent candidates to qualify for the ballot. That's because it takes only 1,288 signatures for them to qualify for a statewide race; true unaffiliated candidates need 42,303 to have their names listed in the general election on equal parity with traditional party nominees.
And the Arizona Democratic Party, which will have its own slate of candidates on the 2026 ballot, clearly wants to keep in place that higher burden which will limit the number of competitors.
“This distinction reflects a deliberate policy choice: Such laws are designed to weed out the cranks, the publicity seekers and the frivolous candidates yet not to keep out those who are serious in their efforts and have a reasonable number of supporters,” Herrera wrote.
Voter confusion?
Charlene Fernandez, who chairs the Arizona Democratic Party — and signed the legal complaint — insists that it has nothing to do with culling out opposition.
She said it's about the confusing name. And Fernandez said there wouldn't be the same objection if No Labels chose some different name, like the “Blue-Red Party.”
The Democrats are not alone in challenging the decision by Fontes to approve the name change.
He already is facing a lawsuit by the Citizens Clean Elections Commission. It also contends that the name change is illegally confusing and that the secretary lacks the authority to simply let the No Labels Party call itself something else.
And some Republicans, including lawmaker and Secretary of State candidate Alexander Kolodin, also believe Fontes made the wrong decision.
On social media, Kolodin referred to the decision as a “naked attempt to game the voter registration rolls in Democrats’ favor.“
Not everyone thinks voters are so gullible, though.
“The average person is smart enough to figure things out,” said Surprise City Councilmember Johnny Melton. “They may choose not to inform themselves. They may choose not to read up on things. But to think that the average voter is incapable of understanding complex issues, I think it’s a little insulting.”
Melton, who is also involved in local and state Republican politics, said he has “no skin in this game,” but believes the concerns about voter confusion are overblown and more driven by both parties’ desire not to lose voters.
“Neither party wants their registration numbers to drop. I don’t want my registration numbers to drop,” Melton said. “But to protect the registration numbers by restricting a third party from giving them a name, that’s not a useful way to protect your registration numbers.”
Johnson, a former Phoenix mayor who made an unsuccessful bid for governor as a Democrat in 1998, has also argued the voters won’t be confused by the change.
He has repeatedly said his former political party has been openly hostile to efforts to open up the election process. He noted that Herrera filed suit in 2024 in a bid to keep an “open primaries” measure off the ballot.
That measure would have had all candidates for all offices run against each other in a primary, with anyone registered to vote entitled to cast a ballot. Then, at least the top two vote-getters would face off in the general election, regardless of party.
But opposition to putting Proposition 140 on the ballot actually was bipartisan, and the ballot measure went down to defeat by a 2-1 margin.
There was no immediate response from Fontes to the latest lawsuit.
But he has previously said that the name change is legal and that he is working with local election officials to minimize confusion.
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