Stephen Richer, the current Maricopa County Recorder, is doubling down on his compliments about the professionalism with which Adrian Fontes conducted himself as the County Recorder during the 2020 election cycle.
This is the same Stephen Richer who ran against -and beat- Fontes in November 2020, campaigning almost exclusively on how bad Fontes, a Democrat, ran the Recorder’s Office during and after the 2018 elections.
A County Recorder has several statutory duties, some of which are unrelated to elections. When it comes to elections, the main duties involve voter registration and early voting.
Richer, a registered Republican, has spent much his 15 months in office praising Fontes’ actions in connection with Maricopa County’s 2020 elections. However, his “Fontes lovefest” as one Republican official calls it ignores the fact a Maricopa County judge ruled Fontes “acted unlawfully and exceeded his constitutional and statutory authority” in issuing a directive to county voters in 2020.
It also ignores Richer’s own repeated reproaches of Fontes during the campaign, much of which stemmed from a report Richer wrote for then-AZGOP Chair Jonathan Lines following complaints about Fontes’ handling of the 2018 election cycle.
In a January 2019 preliminary report to Lines, Richer noted several areas of concern with Fontes’ conduct in 2018, including Fontes’ decision to open emergency voting centers located in Democratic-controlled precincts, his decision to rehabilitate ballots after Election Day, and allegations of partisan behavior by Fontes.
According to Richer’s report, Fontes “deviated significantly” in 2018 from Maricopa County’s past practices when he opened five off-site emergency voting centers. Fontes did so, Richer reported, after communicating with the only Democrat on the county’s Board of Supervisors and with no input from the other four supervisors, all of whom are Republicans.
Also, all five of the emergency voting centers were located in precincts where more voters were registered Democrats; four of the five “overwhelmingly favor Democrats,” Richer wrote.
That January 2019 report was referred to by Richer in an email exchange he had several months later with Shelby Busch of the United Liberty Coalition. In the Nov. 11, 2019 email, Richer noted that off-site emergency voting centers might be good policy, but “Adrian Fontes is not a lawmaker. The state legislature is. And it was inappropriate for him to subvert the legislative process.”
Richer also pointed to what appeared to be partisan favoritism in the Recorder’s Office.
“I think there it is also very probable that Fontes treated Republicans and Democrats differently with respect to multiple voting items. Yes, this includes the location of Emergency Voting Centers, but it also includes the more mundane things like sharing certain information with only certain parties,” Richer wrote to Busch.
Richer also noted in the email that after he issued the preliminary report he heard about “other troubling things” with the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, such as the suggestion Fontes was using his public outreach staff “to target left-leaning groups while not doing the same for groups like the NRA.”
Those outreach efforts may not be “a per se legal violation, but it does seem troubling that the taxpayer funded Recorder’s Office is being used as a de factor Democratic voter registration arm,” Richer wrote, echoing his earlier concerns about Fontes appearing to have used his office in 2018 to assist Democrats.
But Richer appears to have changed his tune about Fontes following the 2020 election cycle, often praising Fontes as an experienced, responsible election official. Those comments are being used to bolster Fontes in his run against House Minority Leader Reginald Bolding to be the Democratic nominee for Arizona Secretary of State.
The same pro-Fontes commentary also appears to be intentionally at the expense of several Republicans running for Secretary of State, including Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rite, Rep. Mark Finchem, Rep. Shawnna Bolick, and Beau Lane.
Meanwhile, new scrutiny is being focused on Richer for issuing an “Open Letter to Maricopa County” last year about the Senate’s then-ongoing audit into the 2020 General Election.
Richer’s 38-page letter dated Aug. 19, 2021 displays the logos for Maricopa County and the Recorder’s Office, but the top page of the letter is addressed “Dear Arizona Republicans.” The letter is also archived on the Maricopa County Recorder’s website.
It appears to be the same type of partisan use of elected office that Richer previously blasted Fontes for engaging in.