Trump's War on Voting Hits a Roadblock
Arizona Sec. of State Adrian Fontes defies the administration
Welcome to a Wednesday edition of Progress Report.
It’s something of a misnomer to say that the federal government shut down at midnight last night, because the Trump administration has been shuttering services, slashing funding, firing public servants, and handcuffing regulators since January 20th.
As such, there’s little reason for Democrats to come to any sort of compromise with a president who has never met an agreement that he wouldn’t break. Democrats can only wind up blessing and funding a public pillaging; for Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, their capitulation would be an endorsement of maniacal segregationist budget director Russ Vought’s cancelation of $18 billion for vital public transportation projects in NYC, which he axed today over the state’s effort to contract with minority-owned businesses.
Funding the government at this point would also be a tacit endorsement of the newly weaponized Department of Justice’s war on voting rights, which is the focus of tonight’s newsletter.
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Adrian Fontes was running election administration in Arizona’s Maricopa County during the 2020 election, so he’s no stranger to wild conspiracy theories and misguided investigations. Hardened by more than a decade of electoral combat against Arizona’s far-right extremists and purveyors of misinformation, Fontes is inherently resistant to obviously partisan inquiries into sensitive voter information — even if that means a legal battle with the White House.
Now Arizona’s Secretary of State, Fontes is locked in a staring contest with the Department of Justice, which has threatened to sue the state if he does not provide the federal government access to the Arizona voter registration database and years’ worth of other records.
There are a number of reasons why he won’t turn over the information to the feds. For starters, Fontes says it’s illegal under Arizona law to disclose that information, and he won’t risk being charged with a felony for complying with demands given by officials who he thinks are lying through their teeth.
“They’re saying that they’re using it to, quote-unquote, find a bunch of illegal voters,” Fontes told me this week. “Now, this is a logical conundrum, because if the assertion has been for years that there’s been millions of illegal voters, where’s the evidence that they already have? And why are they just starting to build that case now?”
The Department of Justice has asked every state to provide its voter registration lists, including first and last names, birthdates, drivers licenses, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. It’s an unprecedented demand with shifting rationale; the DOJ has officially said that it needs access to ensure that states are complying with properly trimming and maintaining their voter rolls, per the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act.
While it’s within the DOJ’s purview to monitor compliance with voter roll maintenance standards, Fontes said that the full voter list would not be helpful in that task.
“You don’t take individual voter data, you take a view of the systems and the processes through which that data flows; you analyze the systems to assure that they are being administered according to the law,” Fontes said. “So even if they really do want to verify that our processes are maintaining voter databases with integrity, they’re going about it wrong.”
It’d also be impractical to try to make any assessments based on a list that is really just a snapshot of a very fluid database.
“For voter data, our databases are dynamic, they change every single day,” he said. “When you have a state that grows as fast as Arizona does, you’re taking off and putting on thousands of voters a day across the state. And you’re doing it in 15 different databases because we have 15 counties.”
As Fontes noted, the DOJ has also said that it needs the data to make sure there aren’t undocumented immigrants committing voter fraud. Any passing knowledge of how elections work discredits this excuse as well.
Arizona has required proof of citizenship to register to vote in state and local elections for more than 20 years. The state tried to impose a proof-of-citizenship requirement to vote in national elections, but last year, the US Supreme Court ruled that only the federal government could do so.
As a result, a request for updated address and personal information to check against Homeland Security’s list of undocumented immigrants starts looking far more suspicious and predatory, especially for this administration.
“I don’t know what they could do; this particular administration has been willing to do unprecedented things,” he said. “Who thought that a president of the United States would deploy National Guard troops into Washington, D. C., which is experiencing a 30-year dip in crime, in order to solve crime?”
It’s hardly a conspiracy theory that the federal government might weaponize the extensive personal data on the voter registration list; in mid-September, a report emerged that the DOJ was planning to hand over the data to the Department of Homeland Security so that it could be used to fuel immigration enforcement. Providing the information that leads to harassment from the federal government could lead to lawsuits and even prosecution, he says.
The biggest red flag, however, is the DOJ’s request for data going all the way back to 2020, when Arizona was at the center of a conservative-manufactured firestorm over fanciful allegations of voter fraud. The New York Times has reported that the DOJ wants to create a national database to “prove” Trump’s fantasy that huge numbers of undocumented immigrants voted in the 2020 election, and concerns about legality are not on its radar.
Either way, Arizona law only requires the state to keep two years of election data, making it an impossible request to fulfill.
“If they bothered to check, they would know that, and they wouldn’t be making demands that cannot be answered,” Fontes said. “They wouldn’t be making requests that cannot be fulfilled. And so that’s why I really have a problem with the entire exercise here.”
That, plus the obvious politics underpinning all of this: The DOJ has already sued eight states, each of which has either a Democratic secretary or state or an elections chair appointed by a Democrat. Only one Republican state that’s been asked for data has handed it over, but none face lawsuits. Arizona has battled with the DOJ for months, but no suit has been filed as of yet.
“There’s definitely a political lean to all of this, which in and of itself is disturbing because this isn’t a political exercise,” Fontes said. “Administering our elections has never been perfect, but it’s always been done with integrity. And there’s never been any proof of widespread fraud or widespread illegal voting or anything like that.”
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The incongruent septuagenarian felon and serial women assaulter [by his own confession in the Hollywood tapes] and who was twice impeached has to be removed.
From his speeches and his demeanor, you can plainly see that he is "not all there". He keeps giving rambling speeches that make no sense. He appears dazed and he is often caught in interview not knowing things that he should. Time for the 25th amendment
With our tax dollars he is in the process of raising an army [ICE] to attack civilian populations in contravention of the Posse Comitatus.
He is not the only one who should be in jail! A couple of Scotus judges who have received bribes should go down in infamy as well.
Thank you and thank the Arizona Secretary of State for fighting back against Trump's DOJ.. What I am disappointed in is the blue state Dems (except California and Nevada) who have not passed combining the local elections with the even year midterm elections! This reform would save multi-millions of tax dollars-which should go to universal Pre-K education. It would also boost voter turnout and result in more women and more minorities being elected to local office, due to the increased voter turnout. It would also lessen the dominance of Republicans in local governments. Its time for Democrats and progresses to wake up and expand citizen power!!!