There were mounting concerns leading up to Election Day that voters and poll workers would face safety threats, that votes would be unfairly counted, that misinformation would rule the day at the polls.
But, things went fairly smoothly. Adrian Fontes, Arizona's secretary of state, joined The Show to tell us why.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: So after so much prepping, right, so much talk about security, so much, talk about safety concerns, so much, talk about election denialism leading up to this election. Were you surprised at how things went yesterday?
ADRIAN FONTES: No, I wasn't surprised because we were prepared. We started work on this back in January of 2023 when I took office. And let's not forget, I'm the first secretary of state in about 40 years who was actually a local election official first. And so we, I knew what kind of team to build. I knew what questions to ask coming right out of the gate.
And we did a great job getting the counties who actually run our elections the resources they need, the training they needed. And we really put the focus in the right places. And I think, but for some of the things that happened in Apache County, it was pretty much a flawless election.
There were, you know, little bumps and bruises here. We had one polling place where someone didn't show up with a key to the supply closet. So they had to wait 20 minutes to get ballots out. And another one in another part of the state where there was a short power outage right at the beginning, but they were open by 6:20 in the morning anyway. So all in all, very safe, very secure.
I think, even though there were long lines because of the length of the ballot, there were no technical problems and there were no safety problems to speak of again outside of Apache County. So, yeah, I feel really good and the team across the entire state did a fantastic job.
GILGER: Let me ask you quickly about Apache County. This is in far northern Arizona, largely Indian country, Navajo Nation up there. The Navajo Nation filed a lawsuit kind of at some point yesterday saying, we need to keep the polls open longer because of these problems. It was problems with printers, with electronic poll books.
Tell us a little bit about what happened here and how things work slightly differently there.
FONTES: Well, yeah, it was a confluence of a couple of different issues at the same time and it was unfortunate. What ended up happening was many of their polling places did not open for some time. But we had some of those backups that are naturally in place. A lot of folks were using the assisted ballot marking devices to get their ballots taken care of. Lots of provisional ballots were issued, the vast majority of which of course are going to count. It's just a different way of voting.
And so we're going to look a little bit more closely to get all of the details about what happened up there. The Navajo Nation did petition the court to hold open those polling places for two extra hours. And look, some folks that didn't get a chance to vote earlier because the lines were too long came back. There were folks who were coming to stand in line in 40 degree weather late in the evening. And it's, it's a lot colder up there than it is down here in the Valley.
But those voters gave us hope right? Because they came out, they wanted to stand in line, they wanted to vote. And, and I believe we, we managed not as well as we could have up there, but I think we did an OK job.
GILGER: So you're confident that everyone who wanted to vote up there was able to vote.
FONTES: I'd like to say that I'm 100% confident in that. But you know, in this business, there, there are too many anecdotal stories that we hear about folks who just gave up to be 100% sure. But we did everything we needed to do across the state to try to prepare each of the counties to be able to do this because these are local elections run at the county level.
And so, getting that training together, getting those resources together, We were hoping for better performance but you know, we'll, we'll we'll see what happened and, and do better next time.
GILGER: I want to ask about security concerns as well here and in other places around the country. There were a lot of stories and, and the police were down there at some point last night looking at bomb threats, reportedly of Russian origin that happened here as well. What, what happened and how was it handled?
FONTES: So, really, what started was a series of emails that were sent out first for threats in Navajo County. Those were without foundation and they came from a .ru email site, which is usually a Russian email site. So without confirming the attribution there, we did what we needed to do.
According to the playbook, we responded appropriately with our partners in federal, state and local law enforcement. The investigation moved forward and then another threat popped up and then another, we had several of them around the state. In fact, I don't have the running total in front of me. But, it was all the way from southern Arizona to along the Colorado River and up in northern Arizona as well.
So, but it was a pattern. It was the same sort of thing. Nobody was ever unsafe, but we treated every single one of them with the urgency they required. And, and again, we responded well, because we trained well, we prepared well and I'm very proud of that.
GILGER: OK. So there was a lot of talk, as I said about election integrity, trust in the election system, election safety heading into this. You've talked about your own safety, about wearing a bulletproof vest leading up to this election because of concerns about that. Do you think the way things went yesterday will quell some of those concerns?
FONTES: No, I don't. You know, we've already received messages this morning about, well, you know, “we, we know you're going to delay the results because you want to inject ballots. But Arizona doesn't matter, blah, blah, blah.”
So, you know, these sorts of things, they happen, and there's folks out there who think it's a good idea to, you know, threaten harass and intimidate elections officials. And, you know, that's it's against law, number one, and number two, it's, it's you know, it's, it's just a thing that we have to deal with now, unfortunately. And, and so we've prepared for that, just like we've prepared for everything else. And I think we dealt with all of that stuff the way it needed to be dealt with. And all in all, I think this is a very good election in Arizona.
GILGER: Have you been concerned about your own safety leading up to this?
FONTES: Well, we've been taking whatever precautions are necessary and advised by our law enforcement folks, right. I'm not a safety expert almost sometimes. Now, I kind of feel like one a little bit but, you know, I, I get advice from some of the best folks in the field and we do what is necessary based on the circumstances that we're presented with.
GILGER: OK, last question for you and I want to ask you about this as a, as a candidate on the Democratic side leading up to the next election, Democrats ..
FONTES: You're running me already?
[LAUGHTER]
GILGER: Democrats are likely to lose Arizona at the top of the ticket, at least it looks like that at this point. Although things are still up in the air as we know. What's your reaction to what's happened around the country today?
FONTES: Well, I think, look, it's Democrats need to pay attention, we need to listen more. And I think we need to be a lot more humble, you know, we've also got to pay close attention to the notion that I've been talking about for a long time.
I used the same philosophy in my own campaign in 2022. You run to win, you can govern later, but you've got to be competitive. You've got to attack the problems that people are facing and not attack the problems that you think are problems, right? We've got to be humble in our servant leadership and that is, let the people out there show us what their problems are and then attack those problems.
And, and then if you've got some agenda down the road, if you want to make some adjustments in the way things work, do it slowly, do it steadily, lead people through it. That's the time to educate, that's the time to really take coalition building for, for, for reals. But if you want to win, you've got to win where the people want you to win, you've got to fight the monsters that they're facing.
And this election tells me, in this, in, you know, if I'm playing political analyst and not secretary of state, this election tells me the same thing that Bill Clinton told us all. It's the economy, stupid. It's not the greater economy. It's the kitchen table economy. And that's where I think the voters were across the country last night.
