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Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes violated state law by giving the public only 15 days to comment on a draft of his elections rulebook in 2023, rather than the required 30 days, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled.
The three-judge panel’s unanimous ruling on Thursday in favor of the state GOP reversed the Maricopa County Superior Court’s dismissal of the case, and sent the case back to the county court for further proceedings.
The ruling casts some doubt on which set of instructions will apply to this year’s all-mail local elections, one of which is taking place in Tucson this month, while others are in May and November. The manual contains detailed instructions for how counties must run elections, with sections on voter eligibility, polling place setup, and certifying and auditing results.
Fontes’ office, which is developing a manual for next year’s elections, believes the 2023 manual is still in effect for now, and will appeal the court’s ruling, spokesperson Aaron Thacker said.
The Republican Party of Arizona, which brought the lawsuit along with the Republican National Committee and the Yavapai County Republican Party, believes that the ruling invalidates the 2023 manual, and that counties must revert to the 2019 manual for this year’s local elections, state GOP Chair Gina Swoboda said.
Swoboda praised the ruling Thursday.
“Our public in Arizona has a right to a voice, on most processes, that doesn’t exist in other states, and people need to remember that,” she said in an interview.
Fontes, whose office is now developing a manual for next year’s elections, will appeal the ruling, an office spokesperson said Thursday night. His office declined to comment on what the ruling means for this year’s elections.
Fontes’ manual was approved by the governor and attorney general in December 2023, and counties used it to run the 2024 elections. Swoboda said that people shouldn’t use Thursday’s ruling to try to contest the results of the 2024 election, in which Republican Donald Trump carried Arizona, and the GOP expanded its advantage in the Legislature, while Democrat Ruben Gallego won the U.S. Senate contest.
The 2023 manual changed some details of how elections are run, on contested issues such as managing voter rolls, determining voter eligibility, defining voter intimidation, and certifying election results. Fontes, Gov. Katie Hobbs, and Attorney General Kris Mayes, all Democrats, made substantial edits to the draft manual, including adding about 15 new pages after the shortened public comment period ended.
Many Republican groups, across several separate lawsuits, challenged all or part of the new rulebook in early 2024. In a few circumstances, they saw rulings in their favor.
The superior court, for example, suspended Fontes’ rules on what constitutes voter intimidation just before the November election. In December, it found that Fontes overstepped his authority in making other rules, including on certifying election results.
In Thursday’s ruling, the appellate judges accepted the national and state GOP argument that the secretary of state must follow the Arizona Administrative Procedure Act’s rulemaking procedures when creating the manual, and that act requires the 30-day public comment period.
The party also argued that eight of Fontes’ rules conflicted with state law, but the appellate court didn’t rule on those matters.
A new manual should be in place for the 2026 elections. Fontes is currently collecting county officials’ comments on draft chapters for that manual. Under state law, it must be approved by the attorney general and governor by the end of this year.
Clarification, March 10: This article was clarified to reflect that the all-mail election in Pima County this month is only for the city of Tucson.
Jen Fifield is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Jen at jfifield@votebeat.org.
