By Jen Fifield | Votebeat
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is walking back election rules that he said would better protect voters, after Republicans successfully challenged them in court.
In a draft rulebook for the state’s 2026 midterm elections, known as the Election Procedures Manual, released Friday, Fontes deleted examples of what constitutes illegal voter intimidation. He also deleted a paragraph that said the secretary of state could finalize the state’s election results without a particular county’s results, if that county’s officials missed the state deadline to finalize them.
The inclusion of those provisions in the previous edition of the manual, released in 2023 ahead of the 2024 elections, drew Republican lawsuits alleging that Fontes had exceeded his authority, and courts ruled against him.
Fontes, a Democrat, said that he has to follow court orders and that he believes the new version will still protect voters and the integrity of elections.
“We’re trying to walk the line between some of the crazy rulings that we’ve seen coming out of the court that seem to protect the First Amendment rights of people who would scream at voters in line, and those First Amendment rights of voters to peaceably assemble, with this new approach,” Fontes said.
Republican Senate President Warren Petersen said in a statement Friday that Republican lawmakers would review the draft closely. If Fontes is now in full compliance with the law, he said, “then we celebrate our win for election integrity.”
