Secretary of State Adrian Fontes wants more funding for Arizona elections. If the state won’t provide, he said private grants should be allowed to supplement the cost of administering votes.
Fontes, a Democrat, accused the GOP-controlled state Legislature of underfunding his office.
“The days of accepting the bare minimum for our elections are over. We can have secure systems, transparent processes and accessible voting but only if the Legislature is willing to pay for them,” he said Wednesday.
While other government entities are allowed to accept private grants, Republicans adopted a law in Arizona explicitly prohibiting his office from doing so. That was to avoid the appearance of special interest groups influencing elections.
The law was passed following the 2020 election, when organizations like Meta, owned by Mark Zuckerberg, helped fund election operations around the country.
“It’s easy to make a boogeyman out of billionaires. I don’t like them either. But we put ourselves in this situation. … Our elections are so underfunded we’ve got counties out there asking for money to do voter outreach,” former Sen. Juan Mendez said at the time.
Fontes is backing legislation, sponsored by Democrats in the Arizona House and Senate, to undo the ban on accepting grants ahead of the midterm elections, among other things.
They’re calling it the “Voters First Act.”
“If you’re going to tear down trust in our systems and simultaneously fail to invest to protect our voter’s privacy and access to the ballot box you shouldn’t be taken seriously when claiming to care about Arizona voters,” Fontes said.
Another of the bill’s most substantial changes would be to reinstate Arizona’s “Permanent Early Vote List.”
The state used to have a PEVL, but GOP lawmakers renamed it the “Active Early Vote List” in 2021. The main difference, besides the name change, is that Arizona voters are now automatically removed from the AEVL if they don’t vote early for two consecutive election cycles.
The Voters First Act would also require counties to send out early-ballot tracking updates to voters via text or email.
It would also officially require the SOS office to keep using the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, system.
Arizona already uses ERIC. It’s a nonprofit used by several states.
Arizona regularly sends voter registration data and motor vehicle licensing data to ERIC, and it’s checked against other data points. That’s how the state can flag voters who’ve moved away, died or are otherwise ineligible to vote.
The Voters First Act would enshrine ERIC’s use in the law, making it an official requirement.
Another change in the Voters First Act would be applying the “75-foot protection zone” around voting areas to include drop boxes. That measure prohibits people from lurking around too close to voting centers unless they’re there to vote.
Fontes is also requesting $1 million for cybersecurity upgrades. The SOS office fended off a cyberattack over the summer and has been asking for an urgent infusion of funding for protection ever since.
The office was actually asking for cybersecurity funding before the attack too, but now they argue it’s an even more pressing problem.
For voters who accidentally drop their ballot off in the wrong county, Fontes said he still wants their votes to count. The bill would direct county recorders to send those ballots to the correct county for processing.
The bill would also extend early voting through the end of the Monday before election day.
The last big change would convert all Arizona polling places to vote centers. Currently, the state has a mixture of vote centers, polling places and hybrids. It varies by county.
The difference between polling places and vote centers is where people can cast their ballots.
With a vote center model, anyone in a certain area can cast their ballot at whichever voting center they choose.
But with polling places, everyone in a precinct can only vote at their designated precinct polling place and won’t be able to vote at other locations.
Republicans have pushed polling-place-only legislation over the years, but counties have argued that it’s not a logistical possibility to establish polling places for every group of about 1,000 voters, and could be confusing for those accustomed to a vote center model.
-
Less than a week after a judge blocked subpoenas seeking testimony from Recorder Justin Heap’s staff, the Maricopa Board of Supervisors voted to compel Heap himself to testify under oath about claims of voter disenfranchisement and other election issues. -
The midterm elections are less than nine months away, with primaries set for this summer. But a new report finds Arizona counties have had more turnover among election workers than in any other Western state. -
The Arizona House of Representatives was scheduled Monday to debate a proposal that would ask voters to change how elections are conducted in the state. -
A pair of education groups are proposing a ballot initiative to rein in Arizona's universal school voucher program — which has ballooned to a nearly billion-dollar-a-year expense since first approved in 2022. -
Gov. Katie Hobbs signed a new law permanently moving Arizona’s primary elections up from August to the second-to-last Tuesday in July.
