Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes continues to refuse to turn over voter data to the Department of Justice, despite months of demands and legal threats from federal officials.
“Why did I say no? Because it is my job to protect your privacy and data,” Fontes said in a video message posted to social media last week.
Fontes made the statement after the Department of Justice asked the secretary of state to turn over the state’s full voter registration list.
“When providing the electronic copy of the statewide VRL, Arizona must ensure that it contains all fields, which includes the registrant’s full name, date of birth, residential address, his or her state driver’s license number or the last four digits of the registrant’s Social Security number as required under the HAVA to register individuals for federal elections,” Harmeet K. Dhillon, an assistant U.S. attorney general, wrote in a letter on Aug. 14.
The letter is part of a monthslong back-and-forth between Fontes’ office and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
Votebeat reported in June that the DOJ accused state officials in Arizona were not following a federal law requiring them to verify voters’ identities.
And the New York Times reported the requests are part of an effort to create a national voter database in an attempt to prove President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims that a large number of undocumented immigrants are voting in U.S. elections.
Fontes vs DOJ
Fontes has repeatedly pushed back on the DOJ’s request for information, including the full voter record.
“This request clearly violates state and federal law,” Fontes said. “The Federal Privacy Act of 1974 was created to prevent government misuse of your private data, placing strict limits on how federal agencies can request and use it.”
Fontes said there are concerns about how the federal government would use that data, citing claims made by a whistleblower that a former DOGE official working at the Social Security Administration copied information for over 300 million Americans and uploaded it to an unsecured cloud server.
In multiple letters to the secretary of state, the DOJ cited its authority under federal election laws, including the National Voter Registration Act, or NVRA, which includes rules states must follow to maintain accurate voter registration. Another letter, sent on Aug. 12, accused the state of failing to follow voter verification requirements under the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA.
In a statement, a DOJ spokesperson said it is collecting the data from states to screen for ineligible voters on the rolls.
“Enforcing the nation’s elections laws is a priority in this administration and in the Civil Rights Division,” according to the statement. “Congress gave the Justice Department authority under the NVRA, HAVA, the Civil Rights Act, and other statutes to ensure that states have proper voter registration procedures and programs to maintain clean voter rolls containing only eligible voters in federal elections. The recent request by the Civil Rights Division for state voter rolls is pursuant to that statutory authority, and the responsive data is being screened for ineligible voter entries.”
Fontes wrote that Arizona officials comply with federal laws, including the NVRA, pointing to the Election Procedures Manual approved by his office that serves as a guide for election officials throughout the state.
“Arizona statutes and rules provide a robust program of voter registration list maintenance,” he wrote in an Aug. 29 letter to the DOJ.
In a Sept. 18 letter, Fontes wrote that he is also “confident that the state voter registration form and processes in place comply with HAVA,” though he said the state is updating its voter registration form to comply with a recent court order.
That includes an emphasis that anyone registering to vote in state elections must provide proof of citizenship.
“We hope these changes assuage your concerns about our voter registration system and compliance with HAVA and other applicable law,” he wrote.
Fontes defended the integrity of Arizona’s voter rolls and repeatedly refused to provide full voter rolls to federal officials.
See you in court?
In an Aug. 29 letter to the Department of Justice, Fontes argued the DOJ failed explain how those federal laws give the agency the power to request full voter rolls, and said “Arizona government officials who provide information from the voter registration database in violation of state law are at risk of felony prosecution.”
The Department of Justice indicated it could file a lawsuit asking a court to force Fontes to turn over the data it seeks, according to an Aug. 12 letter. However, the department did not answer questions about when it would file that lawsuit.
On Sept. 4, the department notified Fonte's office to preserve all election records it maintains dating back to 2020. It also asked Fontes to preserve all records from 2020 to 2024 after receiving “complaints concerning errors and malfeasance in the conduct of the Maricopa County elections.”
Election administration in Maricopa County has faced extreme scrutiny from some Republicans since 2020, following false claims of widespread election fraud by President Trump and his allies. That scrutiny intensified after printer errors in Maricopa County resulted in long lines and delays in 2022, though there was no evidence that “malfeasance” led to those issues.
In response to those demands, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office told the DOJ that federal law requires the state to keep election and voter list maintenance records for about two years after an election.
“Accordingly, the statutory preservation period for the 2020 election expired on or around November 3, 2022, and the statutory preservation period for the 2022 election expired on or around November 8, 2024,” Senior Litigation Counsel Karen J. Hartman-Tellez wrote.
She said that means some of the documents sought by the DOJ may have already been destroyed.
