Secretary of State Fontes Rips Kolodin to Shreds in Fiery Debate

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes made the choice clear in his debate with Republican Alex Kolodin: voters can choose an election administrator who protects their access to the ballot, or a politician with a record of trying to overturn elections, restrict voting by mail, and spread claims that do not withstand scrutiny.

“Look at his record—not at what he’s saying,” Fontes said at the Sept. 30 debate. “He wants to make it harder for you as a citizen to vote because that way he can try to pick his own voters.”

That is the real issue in this race. Arizona cannot afford to put the office responsible for protecting democracy in the hands of a man who has spent years attacking it.

See a real-time fact-check of Kolodin’s mistruths at Alexlies.com.

Kolodin’s record of election denial

Kolodin was not a bystander to Donald Trump’s effort to overturn Arizona’s 2020 presidential result. He served as an Arizona attorney in the failed so-called “Kraken” litigation and represented members of Arizona’s fake-elector scheme. The lawsuit sought to throw out all Maricopa County mail ballots and overturn Joe Biden’s Arizona victory—a remedy that would have disenfranchised millions of lawful voters.

U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa rejected the case, writing that its allegations lacked relevant or reliable evidence and that “gossip and innuendo” cannot replace proper federal-court pleadings or become the basis for overturning an election.

That history matters because Kolodin is now asking Arizonans to entrust him with the machinery of future elections.

Fontes drove home that contrast during the debate: “The winner was the winner, and the loser was the loser, and I was doing my job.” He noted that after losing his own 2020 reelection as Maricopa County recorder, he accepted the result—and that he later presided over Arizona’s 2024 Electoral College vote for Donald Trump, despite preferring a different presidential outcome.

Fontes demonstrated that he did what public service requires: separating personal preference from public duty. Kolodin’s past work was part of an effort to make the people’s votes disappear.

Arizona Bar sanctioned Kolodin

Kolodin’s election-denial record did not end in a political disagreement or a tough campaign loss. It led to professional discipline.

In 2023, the State Bar of Arizona admonished Kolodin and placed him on probation for 18 months after he agreed to discipline over his conduct in several election-related cases. The agreement required him to complete ethics education and pay costs. The disciplinary matter involved violations of rules barring attorneys from bringing bad-faith claims and from engaging in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice.

The Arizona Bar’s disciplinary panel found that Kolodin violated his duties “to the legal profession, the legal system, and the public” through cases that lacked evidentiary support, misrepresented Arizona law, and pursued relief the court could not lawfully grant.

Fontes reminded viewers of that basic fact in his closing statement: Kolodin, he said, had brought “false accusations that have earned him a sanction from the Arizona Supreme Court, and disciplinary action from the Arizona State Bar.”

A candidate for secretary of state should be committed to the rule of law—not disciplined for trying to use the legal system to overturn an election.

Kolodin’s effort to eliminate voting by mail

Kolodin claims he wants to make voting easier. His legislative record says otherwise.

Fontes cited four measures from 2023 alone—HB 2099, HB 2100, HB 2101 and HB 2104—that he said would have eliminated or severely curtailed Arizonans’ ability to vote by mail. “Every single one of those, and so many since then, would have eliminated Arizonans’ right to vote by mail, forcing Arizonans to stand in line to vote,” Fontes said.

Kolodin’s current Proposition 144 would require government-issued identification for every voter, including people voting by mail. Critics, including Fontes, argue that it would undermine Arizona’s widely used early-voting system; Kolodin disputes that characterization.

But voters should assess the proposal alongside the sponsor’s complete record—not just his campaign language. Fontes did exactly that:

“Mr. Kolodin forgets all of the bills that he sponsored or co-sponsored. Let’s just go to 2023: House Bill 2099, 2100, 2101, 2104. Every single one of those, and so many since then, would have eliminated Arizonans’ right to vote by mail, forcing Arizonans to stand in line to vote.”

Fontes then explained what Kolodin’s approach ignores: access and convenience are inseparable in a state where people live in rural communities, work multiple jobs, care for children, lack reliable transportation, or reside in assisted-living facilities.

“Convenience and access are actually the same thing,” Fontes said. “When you’re making it less convenient for voters, you’re reducing their access.”

Arizona’s mail-voting system is not an abstract policy dispute. It is how millions of Arizonans participate in democracy. Any secretary of state who treats that access as expendable is unfit for the job.

The “Sinaloa cartel lawyer” smear

Kolodin repeatedly attacked Fontes for prior work as a criminal-defense attorney, referring to him as a lawyer for the “Sinaloa cartel” and alleging he had represented people accused of serious crimes. Fontes called it “a big, fat lie” and correctly identified the essential principle at stake: legal representation does not endorse a client’s alleged conduct.

“Maybe those folks did bad things, but they deserve the same constitutional rights as everybody else does, Mr. Kolodin,” Fontes said. “And I’m sorry you don’t think so.”

A public defender or defense attorney represents clients because the Constitution requires due process, counsel, and a fair justice system. Smearing an opponent for fulfilling that legal role is not evidence of wrongdoing. It is a political attack on the constitutional right to a defense.

The claim that Fontes would share voter data

Kolodin said he would not turn over Arizona voter-registration data to the Trump administration, but he attacked Fontes for refusing an earlier federal request. Fontes said the request sought unredacted voter-roll information and that providing it would have violated Arizona law and federal privacy protections. He said his office prevailed in litigation, along with other states.

Fontes also warned that the request was part of a broader political effort to cast doubt on voter rolls and make voting harder: “Part of the election denialism scheme is to reduce the capacity for all voters to vote.”

Whether voters agree with every legal strategy of the current secretary of state, the standard should be clear: Arizona officials must follow state and federal privacy law, not simply give sensitive voter information to a presidential administration on demand.

The unsupported “illegal-voter” narrative

Kolodin also exaggerated a limited inquiry involving alleged noncitizen voting. Fontes said an initial list of more than 200 names was narrowed to 60, and that 52 were found to be citizens; the remaining eight were legal permanent residents. The county attorney did not bring charges at that time.

Fontes’s response was direct: “The election denier people, like Mr. Kolodin, want to whip up all of this nonsense about untold hundreds of thousands of illegal voters, which is a lie, and now we have proof that it’s a lie.”

Kolodin’s answer was to extrapolate from a limited sample and suggest there were probably many more unlawful votes. But speculation is not evidence—and it is precisely the kind of unsupported inference that fueled the 2020 litigation for which he was disciplined.

Fontes’s case for voters

Fontes has built his case around practical election administration: ballot tracking, cooperation with county recorders, investments in election security, voter-roll maintenance, and defending the right of every eligible Arizonan to vote.

He said his office created a security division, hired a chief information security officer, conducted election-security exercises, convened an AI-and-election-security committee, and worked with local, state, and federal partners in response to threats.

He also pointed to the state ballot-tracking program, describing it as a bipartisan success that increased enrollment by 73 percent.

But Fontes’s strongest argument isn’t a single program. It is his view of the office itself.

“This is about getting the job done for Arizona voters,” Fontes said, “not being a wild-eyed fanatic, not going off the handle and being absurd in your allegations.”

That is the choice Arizona faces.

One candidate accepted an election result he did not like, certified a presidential outcome he did not prefer, and has worked to help more voters use the ballot safely and conveniently.

The other helped pursue litigation aimed at invalidating millions of mail ballots, was sanctioned by the State Bar for election-related legal misconduct, has promoted bills and a ballot initiative that would make voting by mail harder, and continues to traffic in the same distrust and distortion that damaged public confidence in the first place.

Arizona needs a secretary of state who will defend the voters—not one who has tried to deny them.