The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division’s quest to obtain private voter information, registration, and election records took another turn on January 6, 2026, when it launched litigation against Arizona and Connecticut to compel government officials in those states to turn them over.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes has signaled that he will not back down from the Department of Justice lawsuit.
Fresh off writing an op-ed for New Deal on how the nation’s Democracy has thrived through crises before and the need for all voters to stay attentive and persevere, Fontes took to social media to respond to the below social media post from Jesus Osete, the Civil Rights Division’s number two head under Harmeet Dhillon.
In Secretary Fontes response below, he replied to Mr. Osete’s email:
“Apparently, Mr Osete, the number two guy in the Civil Rights division at the Department of Justice, hasn’t been told that we have responded to every request that the Department of Justice has made.
We’ve refused to sign the MOU that would ask me to break state and federal law.
We refused the letters in August twice.
So I would recommend that Mr Osete, read those correspondents, and we will see you apparently in court.
And since you’ve chosen to use Twitter here as the means of communication, we will do that, but since you’re not reading the letters and the refusals that we’ve already sent you, I will say it to you directly, Mr. Jesus Osete at the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, again, sir, pound sand.“
In reporting from KJZZ, Fontes questioned the motives for wanting the information, saying:
“I don’t know what their actual motive is since it has shifted several times. If you look back through the correspondence, they’ve used a variety of different justifications for their request, which means either they are hiding their actual justification or they don’t have a real justification. In either of those cases, they don’t get the information. Tough!”
On the merits of the Department of Justice’s case, Fontes added:
“The request is unprecedented. And they will lose in court.”
In a podcast interview with Democracy Dockets Marc Elias, before the lawsuit was launched, Secretary Fontes commented:
“They’re going to have to put me in jail if they want this information and have somebody else give it to them because I’m not going to do it. It would be illegal of me to release the information to the Department of Justice as they have requested it. Period. They’re asking me to break the law. It’s going to take a lot more than just a court order to get me to turn this stuff over. It’s going to be a knockdown drag out fight. I will not turn this data over as long as I am the Secretary of State here in Arizona”
This is how fighting back is done, people.
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