Arizona Election Eve Day Roundup, 11-2: Nerves Abound

It’s Election Eve Day and tensions are high in Arizona, though maybe not quite as high as in Michigan and Texas. Shenanigans and positioning are afoot. Here’s what we’re following:

• FBI INVESTIGATES THREE ARIZONA VOTER-REGISTRATION GROUPS–U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine announced Friday afternoon that his office had referred allegations involving three Arizona voter-registration organizations to the FBI. The organizations are Stand Indivisible Arizona, Worker Power and When We Count, the last of which is affiliated with the Democratic Party. Courchaine sent letters to Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap asking them to review registrations that the organizations had submitted. The investigation reportedly follows undercover videos that conservative outlet Muckraker published. The videos show conversations about registering potentially ineligible voters, but don’t establish that the organizations actually registered illegally. The Democratic National Committee, unsurprisingly, disputes the allegations.

• APACHE COUNTY’S 2024 ELECTION DISASTER WAS WORSE THAN OFFICIALS ADMITTED– An October 30 investigation by Votebeat and the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting obtained thousands of pages of records, including a previously unreported March 2025 letter from Secretary of State Adrian Fontes. The records show that Apache County’s disastrous 2024 election involved far more than the malfunctioning ballot printers officials initially blamed. County employees failed to test electronic pollbooks before distributing them.

When the equipment failed, officials had to deliver replacement software to polling places across a county nearly the size of Maryland. Some Navajo Nation polling locations ran out of emergency ballots, leaving some voters unable to cast ballots after waiting in lengthy lines. The investigation also found that approximately 30 voters learned of ballot-signature problems only two days before the correction deadline. Fourteen voters contacted late subsequently had their ballots rejected. The county has since changed its voting procedures and equipment. Fontes says the 2026 primary ran smoothly.

• TURNING POINT MONEY HELPS PROMOTE A “GREEN PARTY” CANDIDATE–The Arizona Mirror reported Friday that Strong Communities Action PAC, headed by Republican activist Merissa Caldwell, spent $8,500 sending messages encouraging voters to support Risa Lombardo, the heavily disputed Green Party gubernatorial candidate. The PAC received $6,540 from Turning Point Action’s federal PAC on October 9 and another $6,500 from the LD10 Republican Party in East Mesa on October 13. Caldwell says the PAC earmarked neither contribution for Lombardo. The particularly entertaining development came Friday afternoon, after the original article appeared. The PAC sent another message describing Lombardo as the “TRUE progressive candidate” for governor. Caldwell, meanwhile, had recently described progressives as “commies” on social media. Lombardo remains under investigation over alleged campaign-finance irregularities. The new contributions don’t establish coordination with her campaign or an illegal expenditure.

•NO FELONS MONITORING THE POLLS, PLS–Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell’s office has asked the Justice Department to verify that election monitors it sends to Arizona have no felony convictions or election-related criminal convictions. The request followed the county’s discovery that a federal election monitor who participated in Arizona’s 2026 primary had pleaded guilty to an election-related offense in 2016. The County Attorney’s Office says the individual will not be credentialed for Tuesday’s election. We’re sure that there will be no controversies after tomorrow in Arizona, a state where no one ever disputes election results.