Arizona's top election official has issued a stark warning that Donald Trump is attempting to create a centralized database of personal information on all American citizens, which could be used to control who votes and suppress opponents. Adrian Fontes, the Democratic secretary of state, fears that the Trump administration's push to extract voter files from 30 states, including Arizona, is part of a broader plan to amass a 'master list' of citizens.
Speaking from his office in Phoenix, Fontes described the effort as an attempt to establish 'apartheid in the United States' and compared Trump's actions to those of authoritarian regimes. He warned that with such data at his disposal, the president could regulate key aspects of his opponents' lives, including 'shutting off their bank accounts, or keeping them from getting healthcare.'
Legal Victory for Arizona
Fontes secured a significant legal victory on Tuesday when a federal judge threw out a lawsuit from the US Department of Justice (DoJ) against Arizona over its refusal to hand over its voter roll. Judge Susan Brnovich, a Trump appointee, ruled that the DoJ was not entitled to the document under federal law. The lawsuit was part of a broader DoJ effort to obtain voter roll information from all 50 states, with 30 states being sued for non-compliance. At least 13 states have voluntarily complied, but many others are resisting.
This ruling marks the sixth federal court to side against the administration in similar disputes. Fontes, who was sued after declining to hand over the data, citing state law that prohibits divulging sensitive personal information on nearly 5 million Arizonan voters, expressed vindication. 'Arizona acted correctly in refusing this request, and today's ruling vindicates that decision,' he said.
Election Denial and Arizona's Role
Arizona has been a focal point for Trump's efforts to stoke election denial conspiracy theories. In 2020, Maricopa County, which covers Phoenix, was the center of a fierce battle where Trump loyalists attempted to declare victory despite his loss to Joe Biden. The Republican-controlled state senate contracted Cyber Ninjas, a private security firm with no election administration background, to conduct an audit of Maricopa County's results. The widely debunked audit concluded that Biden had won the election.
As the November midterm elections approach, Arizona is once again under scrutiny. The state is subject to at least three federal investigations into its election procedures, with the Trump administration continuing to press unfounded claims of rampant electoral fraud. The DoJ claims its data demands aim to root out fraud and voting by noncitizens, but Fontes rejects this argument. 'This doesn't have anything to do with non-citizens, because non-citizens don't vote. Every study shows that,' he said. 'So what you have here is an unprecedented invasion into the privacy of Americans, sold under a false narrative of illegal voting.'
FBI Seizure and Ongoing Investigations
In March, the FBI seized a vast stash of digital data compiled by the Cyber Ninjas audit of Maricopa County in 2020. The material was handed over under a federal grand jury subpoena by the Republican president of the state senate, Warren Petersen. Fontes criticized Petersen's decision, suggesting it may have violated state data-protection laws. 'He was so quick to turn over the material as a political favor to Donald Trump,' Fontes said. 'Clearly he had no intention of protecting Arizona voters or legal processes.'
Petersen's compliance is likely to be a factor in the midterm election for Arizona attorney general, where he is the frontrunner to become the Republican candidate challenging incumbent Democrat Kris Mayes. A third federal investigation is being conducted by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which is taking a renewed look at the 2020 presidential election result. Fontes described the perpetual resurfacing of election denial conspiracy theories in Arizona as 'like herpes. It just keeps coming back.'
Trump's Executive Order on Mail-In Voting
Trump's latest move to wrest control over elections from the states is an executive order last month that attempts to limit mail-in voting by creating a national voter file to which the US Postal Service would have to defer before delivering mail ballots. The order, being challenged as unconstitutional, is especially sensitive in Arizona, where 80% of votes are cast by mail under a system devised decades ago by the Republican party. Fontes called it 'a bald-faced attempt at completely controlling American democracy according to the whims of one political actor, and that's not just un-American, it's absolutely anti-American.'
Fontes' Re-Election Battle
Fontes is preparing for his own re-election battle in November, likely against an election denier. The two Republicans vying for their party's candidacy in the secretary of state race both have election-denial track records. Alexander Kolodin, a lawyer, was placed on probation by the state bar after filing lawsuits challenging Biden's 2020 victory that a judge slammed as full of 'gossip and innuendo.' The other candidate, former Arizona Republican Party chair Gina Swoboda, was the Trump campaign's director of operations on election day in 2020. She claimed in a dismissed lawsuit that more than 1 million ineligible voters may have been on the rolls.
Fontes said he is 'cautiously optimistic' that he and his Democratic peers will sweep the state again in November, but conceded that 'we have to be extra vigilant.' He noted two factors making re-election more difficult: unlike in 2022, there is no US Senate race in Arizona this year, reducing Democratic voter turnout. Additionally, the rightwing activist group Turning Point USA has grown in influence since 2022. Turning Point, whose leader Charlie Kirk was killed by a gunman in September, is headquartered in Arizona and has largely supplanted the old Republican party in the state, according to Fontes.
'We've got to be cautious because we're going to be running against the conspiracy theories, lies and misrepresentations,' he said. 'The stakes of this election are enormous, and every voter will be impacted by the outcome.'
