Voting rights advocates are closely watching the race for secretary of state as leading candidates support the president’s rejection of the 2020 election results.
What happens to my ballot after I vote in Arizona?
Arizona Republic political reporter Stephanie Murray explains what happens to your ballot after you vote.
Arizona’s most influential elections this year may not be for governor or Congress, but for statewide offices that rarely make national headlines but help determine who wins in covered elections.
A candidate who denies the legitimacy of President Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election is likely to win the Republican nomination for secretary of state in the July 21 primary.
According to a recent NextGen Polling poll, Republican candidate Alex Kolodin has a 44-20 lead over Gina Swoboda in the race to replace incumbent Democrat Adrian Fontes as Arizona’s top elections official in November.
Kolodin is a state lawmaker from Scottsdale and a lawyer who has gained wide attention for arguing that elections in the United States, including in Arizona, are unfair and “rigged.”
Mr. Swoboda has worked in the Secretary of State’s office under both Republicans and Democrats, and with Mr. Trump’s blessing served as leader of the state Republican Party. A former Democrat, she has Kolodin, who wants to abolish Arizona’s mail-in voting system, an unelectable choice.
In return, Kolodin appointed Swoboda a “water carrier” for Fontes, Arizona, the USA TODAY newspaper reported on June 10.
Swoboda announced last October that he would seek the Republican nomination for Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, and had the support of President Trump. But four months later, shortly after announcing her candidacy for secretary of state, she told Arizona’s Family Press: “I’m running as Gina without any endorsement because I think that’s what the people of Arizona want.”
As is common in most states, the Arizona Secretary of State is primarily responsible for maintaining the statewide voter registration database, creating the state’s election procedures manual that translates election laws into practical “how-to” guides, and certifying election equipment.
But former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said the office has become something of a “bullying pulpit” since then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, used it in 2020 to push back on claims by Trump and Arizona supporters that the state’s election was rigged against her.
“I think the secretary has a powerful role right now in terms of being the ostensible chief spokesperson for election administration,” Richer, a Republican who currently analyzes election administration and democracy as a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, told USA TODAY. “And I think if your chief press secretary is promoting some of the nonsense that Alex has been promoting for the last about six years, that could undermine the process.”
Key players in ‘Kraken’ lawsuit to overturn 2020 election
Kolodin was also part of the so-called “Kraken” lawsuit involving Trump ally Sidney Powell, which alleges “massive election fraud” in 2020. Mr. Kolodin also represented some Republican “fake electors” who wanted to set aside Arizona’s certified 2020 election results as part of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss.
After Arizona’s Kraken lawsuit was dismissed, along with lawsuits filed in other states, Kolodin was formally reprimanded by the state’s attorney and required to take legal ethics classes for filing a case that lacked merit.
In the state Legislature, Kolodin, now a second-year lawmaker, is sponsoring an amendment to the state constitution that would allow counties to use hand-counting of votes, a method experts say is more prone to errors than electronic counting.
This is also the approach that President Trump and his supporters are promoting at the national level.
Kolodin’s “Arizona Safe Elections Act” would also require voters to show government-issued identification to vote.
Last month, the Republican-run Legislature voted to put Kolodin’s plan on the fall general election ballot, bypassing Hobbs’ veto.
“Promote the continued administration of lawful and fair elections in Arizona.”
One of the most important aspects of the job, Richer said, is to ensure that Arizona’s 15 counties are in compliance with state election law and how they are administered, assuring the public that the system is working, there is no fraud, and that their votes are being counted.
Richer said it’s also important that the state’s county election officials, who manage a patchwork of different voting machines and systems, know that the secretary of state is their “ally” if there’s a problem with an election.
“I think that’s the case with Gina Swoboda. She’s going to do a different job as a Republican than Fontes,” Richer said. “But she will still do a great job … and lead the office responsibly to promote the continued enforcement of lawful and fair elections in Arizona.”
Mr. Richer says he is not very supportive of Mr. Kolodin.
“If Alex were to act in any way consistent with his behavior over the past few years, it would make the process uncomfortable, at least for election officials,” Richer said. “And that can erode trust and make coordination between the county and the state more difficult.”
Richer’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
There is an argument over who can beat the Democratic incumbent.
Swoboda briefly ran for Congress in 2025, but dropped out of that race and instead ran for secretary of state. She states that this is her real interest. She ran the Trump campaign’s voter integrity operation in Arizona in 2020.
Before she took over the state party, Swoboda ran the Voter Reference Foundation, a pro-Trump nonprofit that said it investigated and found “significant” discrepancies between voter counts and ballot counts from other states’ voter files in the Nov. 3, 2020, election, according to a ProPublica investigation.
During a 30-minute candidate forum on Arizona PBS on May 14, Mr. Kolodin and Mr. Swoboda had a heated exchange about each other’s backgrounds and efforts to ensure election integrity.
While the discussion delved into whether party observers could directly monitor election results, Swoboda focused on the chances of winning.
“I want to ask you, do you really think my opponent has a chance of beating Adrian Fontes in the general election?” Swoboda said. “The answer is no.”
Kolodin noted that Swoboda is a Democrat and a former aide to Hobbs when he headed the office that oversaw state elections.
“This person is clearly not stable enough to be a campaign manager,” he said.
Agreement on how to jointly oversee November vote
Election officials in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, reached an agreement last week on how to jointly oversee voting, ending a long legal battle.
The decision came as President Trump delivered a national address insisting that U.S. elections cannot be trusted.
President Trump’s speech and debunked claims of massive 2020 election fraud, as well as his stated intention to interfere in state election processes by assuming federal control of some aspects of voting, are at sharp odds with Fontes, an outspoken critic of the president.
Just before President Trump’s July 16 speech, Fontes renewed his vow to protect Arizonans’ right to vote.
“Administering elections is difficult enough without the threat of the federal government,” Fontes said.
Contributor: Arizona Republic Staff
