This narrative is further supported by the disparate treatment of Republican County Supervisor Steve Chucri and Democrat County Supervisor Steve Gallardo in the context of the emergency voting centers. As previously noted, Democrat Gallardo purportedly requested that Recorder Fontes open an emergency voting center in Tolleson so as to better assist the voters in Gallardo’s district. Recorder Fontes complied and worked with Supervisor Gallardo to expand emergency voting. By contrast, Republican Supervisor Chucri said he was not consulted about the locations of the emergency voting centers, and he was not even informed of the expansion of the emergency voting centers prior to their public announcement. Additionally, in an email to Recorder Fontes dated Monday, November 5 (the day before Election Day), Supervisor Chucri told Recorder Fontes that “[d]ue to recent inquiries, I am formally asking you to place aside all ballots cast at emergency voting sites after early voting ended on Friday, November 2, 2018, until your legal authority to open emergency sites has been clarified.” Chucri claims that he received no response from Recorder Fontes on this topic. This Review has sought an interview with Recorder Fontes regarding this interplay, but Recorder Fontes has not responded. As it stands, this juxtaposition of treatment between Democrat Supervisor Gallardo and Republican Supervisor Chucri on the topic of emergency voting centers would, again, allow an observer to plausibly suspect that Recorder Fontes is not a neutral arbiter of the voting process.
- Explicit Partisanship
During the interview process of this Review, multiple credible sources alleged that Recorder Fontes behaved in an inappropriately partisan behavior to the advantage of certain candidates or political entities. However, this Review cannot confirm or deny these allegations — or comment on their likelihood — without documents from the Recorder’s Office and interviews with the Office. The allegations of partisanship put forward by credible sources are as follows:
- That, as described above, Recorder Fontes coordinated with Democrat Kyrsten Sinema’s campaign by privately disclosing the timing and location of the emergency voting centers without offering the same information to Republican Martha McSally’s campaign;
- That Recorder Fontes sent instructive and helpful private text messages to attorney Roopali Desai and/or other members of the law firm Coppersmith Brockelman PLC, counsel for the Arizona Democratic Party, regarding the fact that they would need to sue his office to obtain certain information regarding voter records, but that Recorder Fontes did not provide the same information to the attorneys representing the Martha McSally campaign or the Arizona Republican Party;
- That Recorder Fontes helped place people with the campaign firm Zero Week Solutions, which assisted the Arizona Democratic Party.
These allegations reveal the absence of a code of conduct for the Recorder. As such, even if certain allegations of explicit partisanship were demonstrated to be true (particularly the third bullet point), it is uncertain if they would merit some form of censure.
4A. Fraud and Voting Irregularities
Allegations of fraud in the 2018 Arizona elections reached the highest levels of American politics, with even the President of the United States claiming fraud and questioning the need for a new election. This Review evaluated individual reports of fraud or voting irregularities. The most consistent and most credible of these reports took the form of voters who reported that the ballots they received on Election Day had been pre-marked with Democratic candidates. The signed declaration of voter Ted Butler is illustrative. Butler was among the first to vote at approximately 6:00 a.m. at Gloria Dei Church. The ballot he received “had been pre-marked to select Democrat candidate Kyrsten Sinema for office of United States Senator and Democrat candidate Greg Stanton for the office of United States Representative for the Ninth District of Arizona.”87 Butler conveyed this information to election officials, as did other voters who allegedly received pre-marked ballots. This Review has requested documents and interviews to ascertain if the Recorder’s Office investigated such claims and if it received an equal number of complaints regarding ballots pre-marked with Republican candidates as it did ballots pre-marked with Democrats.
Also concerning are allegations made of ballot harvesting and allegations of efforts being made to find ballots in the trash and vote the ballot. The declaration of Allie McCann is representative. McCann alleges that two individuals purportedly from a group called “Arizona Wins” asked McCann if she “would be interested in helping … Democrat candidates … [by] rummag[ing] through dumpsters to find discarded unvoted early ballots” and then mark those ballots and mail them.89 This Review hopes that these issues, and the issue of pre-printed ballots, are investigated by the Recorder’s Office so as to forestall future incidents. However, at this time, this Review has no evidence that links these particularized instances of fraud and/or voting irregularities to a widespread, preconcerted plan by the Recorder or anyone within the Recorder’s Office.
About the Process of This Review
Arizona Republican Party Chairman Jonathan Lines authorized this Review on November 15, 2018. In the weeks following that announcement, the author of this Review conducted in-person or telephone interviews with 37 individuals for background information, to ask about particular information, and to learn about individual Election Day experiences. These interviews included conservations with:
- Elected members of the Arizona state legislature
- Elected supervisors on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors
- Officials in Michelle Reagan’s Secretary of State Office
- County Recorders of other counties
- Former Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell
- Staff members of the Arizona state legislature
- Staff members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors
- Election law attorneys familiar with the November 2018 election
- Campaign staff involved in the November 2018 election
- Election Day poll monitors, inspectors, and observers
- Voters
Recorder Fontes has not accepted a request for an interview.
In addition to the above interviews, this Review made a public website available whereby people with information could anonymously submit information to an email account. This Review received 27 submissions to that email account.
This Review also submitted multiple public records requests: three to the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, one to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, one to the Arizona House of Representatives, and one to the Arizona Senate. Those requests and the resulting documents are attached as exhibits.
About the Partisan Nature of This Review
Although this Review was commissioned by a partisan entity (The Arizona Republican Party) and conducted by a registered Republican (Stephen Richer), this report is intended to be grounded in the available evidence, and the conclusions are intended to be measured assessments of the available evidence.
About the Author of the Review
Stephen Richer is an attorney in the downtown Phoenix office of an international law firm headquartered in Washington, DC. However, Stephen conducted this report as an independent volunteer for the Arizona Republican Party, and not as a member of his firm.
Stephen received no compensation for the time he spent on this report from the Arizona Republican Party, nor from any other entity. Nor did he receive any pro bono credit from his firm for the time he spent on the report.
Stephen is a registered Republican and was previously a Republican precinct committeeman. Stephen donated to over 25 Republican candidates in 2018 and led a volunteer coalition for Martha McSally’s candidacy for U.S. Senate. However, as noted above, this report is intended to be rooted in available evidence, not partisan dissatisfaction.
Kory Langhofer and Thomas Basile of Statecraft Law, counsel for the Arizona Republican Party, advised on background for this Review. Kathleen Amundson, Merissa Hamilton, and Ryan Regula provided volunteer research assistance.