Secretary of State Adrian Fontes will not be giving the Department of Justice (DOJ) the state’s complete voter registration database.
On Tuesday, Fontes announced he was denying the DOJ’s request on the basis of concerns that the Trump administration cannot securely handle voter registration data.
“It’s my job to ensure Arizona’s elections are safe and secure,” said Fontes. “That includes protecting the sensitive personal data of our 4.5 million registered voters.”
It’s my job to ensure Arizona's elections are safe and secure. That includes protecting the sensitive personal data of our 4.5 million registered voters.https://t.co/hE2v2cRY3b
— Arizona Secretary of State (@AZSecretary) September 2, 2025
“We’re going to fight as far as we have to against this,” said Fontes. “I’m not going to give up the personal identifying information of my voters. It’s just not going to happen.”
Fontes’ handling of voter data has come under scrutiny in recent months.
Earlier this summer, the secretary of state’s office sustained a data breach to its candidate campaign portal believed to have been carried out by Iranian hackers. The Arizona Department of Homeland Security is investigating the cyberattack, which occurred several days after the U.S. bombed Iran. Per Fontes, the voter registration database was not compromised by the attack, although candidates’ sensitive personal data may have been accessed.
The cyberattack resulted in the change of multiple candidate profile photos to display the Iranian revolutionary and Islamic republic leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. State cybersecurity officials disclosed that hackers attempted to gain entry to other Arizona agencies without success.
Fontes’ office blamed the attack on a lack of funding for modernizing security features.
In that instance as well, Fontes refused to contact the Trump administration.
This more recent refusal of the Trump administration came about a month after the DOJ initially sent their request letter to the state.
This most recent letter was preceded by an earlier, separate letter in May from the DOJ warning the state to comply with voter identity verification law (the Help America Vote Act of 2002) by accepting a partial Social Security number only from individuals who lack a driver’s license number or nonoperating license number. That same letter asked Fontes to cross-reference all registered voters in the voter registration database who provided the last four of their Social Security number on their voter registration application against Arizona Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Division database information to identify noncitizens.
Fontes submitted a response letter to the DOJ in June declaring the state already complies with HAVA requirements, implying they would not be conducting a database cross-reference and submitting a report within 90 days as requested.
The DOJ outreach aligns with President Donald Trump’s executive order given in March to ensure elections were protected from noncitizen voting. In that order, Trump directed the DOJ to enter into information-sharing agreements with each state’s chief election official or agency. As part of these agreements, the DOJ would obtain information on violators of election laws.
Per the executive order, states unwilling to enter such an information-sharing agreement would be subject to DOJ enforcement actions and withholding of grants and other funds.
On Saturday, Trump announced he plans to issue an executive order requiring voter ID and severely restricting mail-in ballots.
Well done, Mr. Fontes. Resist the dictatorship.
Fontes tried to hide the names of 218,000 voters who have been improperly registered to vote because of a glitch in the state’s driver’s license database prior to the 2024 election. He supports chaos and is against election integrity.
let him decide what to do in a jail cell
The democrats have made their corruption syndicate so commonplace that they don’t even attempt to hide it anymore. Look what they’ve been serving – Pretend that men can become women. Pretend that Covid vaccinations are safe and effective. Pretend that national borders don’t matter. Pretend that crime is not a social problem. Pretend that riots are mostly peaceful. Pretend that our elections are free and fair. Pretend that “Joe Biden” is president. Pretend that Ukraine is fighting for democracy. And so on.
Blah blah blah. Again, article after article, accusations after accusations and what? NOTHING will happen to Fontes and he will most likely be reelected.
Ignorant voters and feckless Republicans are what got us to this point…enough is enough!!
Fontes is following his old pattern of ignore the rules, make your own, or even break the law and apologize later. It is getting old. I understand that Finchem was a kook and unelectable, but how did we do better with Adrian? We didn’t.
BS. He is probably hiding illegal voters.
I applaud his reasons, but I question his motives, dedication, and integrity. You know he would personally deliver said data to Biden, et. al. No one at the federal level, not even Jefferson himself, should have that info. I’m all for a State-level DOGE, though.
This is just posturing. He has to give it up and at the end he will.
By the way, I do not have any problem revealing my personal information to the Feds. They have it anyway. This is just pure circus by a clown.
“I’m not going to give up the personal identifying information of my voters. It’s just not going to happen.”
The data breach earlier this summer by supposed Iranian hackers seems to indicate that you might already have failed to keep this promise. So, Fontes will give up data to foreign hackers but not to the US Department of Justice? Yet another Democrat incompetent political hack.
Arrest him.
“My voters” says Fontes, giving away the game. Can’t allow federal DOJ (or anyone) to start rooting out all of HIS non-citizen/bi-state/fictional/dead voters that have been corrupting Arizona elections for far too long.
Oh my! What do we have to hide? I smell a rat!
Guess he has illegal voters and does not
want them ID’d. why else would he not
Give the govt the roles? The az democraps
Are corrupt just like the national party, and
the az gop (if there is one) are just more
Swamp dwellers you would think mclame
is still on office! People believe the long
on promises short on delivery democraps
are concerned about them and the state.
Too blind to see reality what have they done
for the state in last 40 years?
This guy a is a criminal in the pocket of the cartels. He needs to be arrested and charged for his crimes. I can’t believe DOJ hasn’t started a criminal investigation into him after all the evidence about his crimes.
Sorry Arizona, my former home for 50 years. You are permanently a State of Communism. Bow to the democrats or be punished living a life without freedom, without prosperity. The only alternative, move.
Fontes hails from Santa Cruz county…smallest county in Arizona with the biggest thieves. Just ask proud Democrat Liz Gutfahr the former Treasurer found guilty of stealing 38 million from the school districts funds. Fontes hails from that area of corruption. Make no mistake, he is of that background. In Arizona one goes far when you are easily bought.
Fontes sole purpose is election rigging. It’s the Dems only means to power.
Fontes, being the POS that he is would like nothing more to see all illegals vote in both local and federal elections. His lame excuses for not cooperating with the DOJ makes it easier to accomplish that. I am going to ask JUDICIAL WATCH to sue Fontes and the state to get compliance with the DOJ”s request.
This guy has been a crook, since his first time in office. If his lips are moving , he’s lying.
He needs to be removed from office in disgrace bu the AZGOP and legislature don’t have the nads to do so and hoping the residents of AZ do it for them. Cowards!! And we continue to elect these clowns over and over
“I’m not going to give up the personal identifying information of my voters. It’s just not going to happen.”
Who the bloody hell do you think you are by referring to the voters of Arizona as ‘my voters’? When you say ‘my voters’, are you referring to those that aren’t legally allowed to vote and are kept on your voter rolls anyway? This whole blame Iran on hacking into the voter database is a ruse anyway, and Fontes’s refusal to cooperate raises suspicion. We’re you this recalcitrant while serving in the Corps?
We saw what he did when he was County Recorder, now we are watching his antics as Secretary of State. All the while professing “It’s my job to ensure Arizona’s elections are safe and secure,” when it appears he has done nothing of the sort. Why we have to put up with this charade is beyond me.