Photo by Gage Skidmore | CC BY-SA 2.0
By Jen Fifield | VoteBeat
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, granted Votebeat an interview about the state’s 2024 election just before he met with Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes on Nov. 25 to certify the results.
His answers have been edited for clarity and length.
Q: So how did it go?
A: The election went very, very well. I think the voters know that, because they’re not paying much attention anymore. So, no controversies to speak of. Basically, we had some of the same concerns that every election has: a little hiccup here, a minor hiccup there, very localized in some of the counties. Other than that, statewide, we did really well, and I think our preparations paid off.
Q: Where’s the protest this time around? Where are the accusations of fraud?
A: Well, there are none, because election denialism is, I think, officially dead. We’ve shown that using the same systems, the same technology, the same people, in the same state, even with the same candidates, the voters can make a different pick. And that’s just where we’re at. So I think the movement of election denialism is going to be pretty desperate to find any more gas in their tank.
Q: Is it because Trump won?
A: It might be. But even if we had the same kinds of questions [about the integrity of the election], I think they’d [have] the same lack of evidence. Because none of the questions that have been asked before had any evidence behind them. None of the allegations of fraud before had any evidence behind them. So, I guess you can say Arizona’s election systems stand vindicated. Again.
Q: We saw delays in processing [cast ballots] because of the two-card ballot. Do you think that counties sufficiently staffed for that, or did they not think ahead on that point?
A: I think you can make the argument that a lot more resources could have been spent, earlier on, to clear any of the backlog from early voting. But at the end of the day, the counties really only have so many resources, and they knew that there was going to be a big crush at, and after, Election Day. So maybe they didn’t anticipate that they might need more folks earlier, but maybe they didn’t have the resources. And to be honest, election budgets are set well before the election, and these budgets were set well before we knew there were going to be two cards on the ballot.
