Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes Discusses the First Six Months of 2024

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes graciously took the time to discuss the first six months of 2024 with Blog for Arizona. The Secretary discussed the progress his office was making with regard to preparing for the 2024 elections and the advances his team has made in serving Arizonans with better results. 

The questions and the Secretary’s responses are below. 

• Mr. Secretary compared to 2023, how is 2024 going for you and your team at the Secretary of State’s office? 

“We were in the discovery stages back in 2023 learning about the details of the Department of State, what the needs were, and really trying to set the institution up for success. I happen to think I was the right person at the right time to come into this office having had experience as an election administrator at the county level, which is unique. I’m only the second or maybe the third Secretary of State in history who has actually run elections at the county and then moved up to the Secretary’s office. So, we brought that perspective of asking the right questions, which is why things are now going well. So, now we are setting up for the 2024 election this year and doing everything we can to prepare the counties with the limited resources that we have. We’re going to set up in 2025 for future successes going forward so as compared to 2023, which again was mostly discovery and asking the right questions. Gathering resources this year, it’s all about execution and I think we’re doing a great job.”

• What are two things you and your team of the Secretary of State’s office have been able to accomplish in the first half of 2024? 

“I think for the long-term benefit of the state, the best program we’ve put in place is our fellowship program. We have a couple dozen college students who we are going to employ from July through November. They will be working directly with county election administration offices across the state. This not only trains a whole new set of election administrators, but also exposes them to the good work that they can do in their communities at the county level. There’s not a lot of programs that promote civil service as a career path and this really does show people that they can make an enormous difference working with county elections offices.”

 “I think the second really important thing we have done is bring down the temperature between the Department of State and the Legislature. We’ve been that even keel, reasonable voice that brings them data, and both sides of the aisle have been very receptive. My administration just wants to get the work done. We’re not interested in a lot of the political maneuvering that has been happening in the Department of the State over the last several administrations. I’ll say this, and I’m not calling out anyone secretary, but we’re focused on the work, and they can appreciate that at the legislature, and I think that’s good for the Department of State long term. Like anybody in any position, you want to leave it better than you found it. We’re well on our way to doing that.”

The election procedures manual that your office put forth. Has that found a better reception with the Legislative Republicans?

“Yeah, I mean they had their proforma lawsuit challenging a variety of different aspects of the election’s procedures manual but the cooperation that we shared with them throughout the process in 2023, I think is much better evidence of the mood.  I think politically, some of them may have felt obliged to file the lawsuits that they filed. Again, we don’t take it personally. It’s really just part of the political theater at the State Capitol. We’re happy to answer appropriately. We will end up winning. The elections procedures manual will stand as authored and authorized, and I’m very confident in the work that we all did together including the bipartisan work that we shared with the Republicans.”

• What have been the least two challenges your team has had to face this year?

“I will say going back to the beginning of the term 18 months ago, we lost a significant amount of experience when former Secretary Hobbs moved up to the ninth floor and took a bunch of people with her. That was a little bit rough because we had to find a way to replace all of that institutional knowledge. That was an important part of level setting the office’s capabilities, then moving the chains forward up the field. All of that turnover and rebuilding into 2024 made it a little bit challenging. But all election offices in Arizona have seen some turnover, and I think the folks who have remained are committed, one, to training the new folks; and, number two, the new folks coming in are already experienced enough to provide the service that we’re supposed to provide to the counties because they come from the counties. Managing those changes is a challenge, but executing the actual work of those changes has not been as challenging as we thought it might be because we’ve got a hell of a good team. They’re very dedicated to the work, and they have the right experience. So, we are the right administration at the right time for Arizona’s Department of State.”

• Please explain to us how preparations for the 2024 primary General and post-elections are progressing and the challenges that you and the team have had to address. 

“This is a very different election than the 2020 presidential election. One reason why is we’ve already been through it. We’ve already been through the notion that there might be a candidate who decides not to cooperate, not to accept the results, and who will be willing to mount legal and other kinds of challenges against not just the election but elections officials and effectively against voters. So that perspective is in and of itself real preparation. Reflecting on the different iterations of those previous challenges allows us to consider what might manifest during the 2024 election year, which really puts us at a great advantage to be able to look ahead because this story hasn’t changed from their side. The conspiracies haven’t changed. The false accusations haven’t changed and they’re not going to. There are only so many ways you can lie, and they’ve tried them all. So we’re about as ready as we can be moving forward for all of the challenges that you’re talking about with the one difference being the delivery mechanism is different this time because they didn’t have artificial intelligence or generative AI as easily accessible as they have been this year. Our foreign adversaries bolstered by their domestic complicit partners are going to be emboldened this year, but we’re going to be ready for them.”

RFK Jr: Has he qualified for the Arizona Ballot or you can’t comment on that yet. 

“We will have the final list of qualified candidates when the time is appropriate.”

When you were on Meet the Press a couple weeks back, you would refer to some of the people offering you challenges or creating a ruckus as domestic terrorists. Do you want to elaborate on that? 

“Yeah. I don’t ever want that label to go onto people who have legitimate questions and are genuinely interested in hearing the answers and the explanations for how our processes work.”

“The label domestic terrorists only applies to those very few people who would have temerity and act in such an Un-American way as to threaten elections officials, threaten election workers, or threaten voters to try to achieve a political outcome to their liking. This is the definition of terrorism, and they deserve to be called domestic terrorists. We should just speak the truth in this space. If we are worried about their feelings, then we’re looking at it from the wrong perspective.

• Is there anyone at your office you would like to recognize for their contributions to making the first 18 months successful? You can name more than one person if you like. 

“I think it would be doing everyone an injustice if I named anyone or two people. I have a really amazing team top-to-bottom from my chief-of-staff to some of the folks who have been around for a long time. From some of the newest members of our staff who just started to some of the old salty professionals who came to us from other agencies. Everyone has been not just gracious and generous but really humble and hardworking in their tasks. And in their work, it’s a privilege to lead this group at the Arizona Department of State. And not just in elections. We’ve made amazing advances in the business services division at the Department of State. Those folks definitely should be elevated as well. Over in the library and archives and public records section of the Department of State, they have been really leveling up over there. We have a new state archivist who we’re very excited about coming on board here soon. So, it’s not just about elections. They’ve all done a very good job and so signaling any one person out. I don’t know that would be doing anybody a favor.”

• Mr. Secretary. Is there anything not covered in the first five questions you would like to read us to know about the first half of 2024? Please explain. 

“I think one of the most significant upgrades we’ve made to The Department of State for Arizona is in the business services division. We have introduced some metrics-measuring devices that have allowed us to become much more efficient and much more customer-oriented in our delivery of services.  We’ve saved at least half of an FTE merely by scanning a whole bunch of documents that were sitting around in boxes in the hallways. You know simple things like that have saved us a lot of time and a lot of money. And that’s taxpayer dollars saved. We reopened the service counter in Phoenix and in Tucson, and we’ve by some measures seen more than a 10-fold increase in the number of folks that we were serving each day compared to the way we were previously. So I’m very proud of the business services division because they’re the ones who know are the engines of our democracy; the small businesses that we help get started. They do those vital bits of paperwork that are behind the scenes. It’s that support system that I think entrepreneurs and opportunity builders deserve a solid partner in it. We’re happy to provide that partnership.”