Earlier this month, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem made a sudden visit to Arizona to discuss “election security,” which she and other Trump administration officials have routinely claimed is being undermined by non-citizen immigrants. When asked by reporters to name a single example of alleged voter fraud, however, she only said: “Oh, I’m sure there’s many of them.” Nevertheless, officials like Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes are not only dealing with confusion and fear stoked by the Trump administration’s declarations, but also directly hostile attempts to take over the state’s elections, including an ultimatum to hand over voter rolls and plans to deploy ICE agents at voting sites.
As both a border state and a battleground between the Democratic and Republican parties, Arizona has been a lightning rod for immigration and election integrity battles long before Donald Trump began his second term. Fontes, who first served as Maricopa County Recorder from 2017 to 2021 and then as the state’s chief election officer since 2023, has become a visible face of opposition against attempts to intimidate and suppress voters by Republicans, which included a much-criticized audit by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on voting machines in the Phoenix metro area.
