Arizona Secretary of State discusses election concerns

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes visited Arizona Horizon to discuss various election concerns such as the latest ruling for the political party No Labels and legislature’s lowering of the threshold for recounts.

A federal judge ruled the political third-party No Labels has the right to prohibit its own members from using its ballot line to run for office in Arizona.

Fontes has disagreed with this ruling, and said he’s working to appeal.

“First and foremost, its wrong because that’s not what Arizona voters wanted. When they signed those petitions, they said August primaries. Number two, we’ve already got candidates who’ve filed notices of intent for several of those offices that have primaries in August. So what about their rights?” said Fontes.

Fontes continued, “Number three, we just don’t do it that way in Arizona. No other party has been offered this very, very special and privileged treatment to say that somebody at the national level gets to decide in Arizona, for Arizona’s voters, over what the Arizona voters actually asked for in the first place,” said Fontes.

On the legislature change, Fontes has also expressed some concern.

“The unattended consequence of that is that we may miss opportunities to send votes out to our own forces and other folks overseas,” said Fontes on the latter issue.

The Department of Justice’s inaction at responding to threats against election workers and combatting misinformation were also topics Fontes discussed.