Todd Sanders (Host):
Welcome back to the podcast. We are honored today to have the Secretary of State for the state of Arizona, Adrian Fontes, joining us. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Happy to be here.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Coming to hang out with us for a little while.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah. Thank you very much. Glad to be here.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Well, we always like to start with getting to know you outside of your bio, so maybe tell us a little bit about you, but also something interesting.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Well, I was born and raised down in Nogales. My family's been in the Sonoran Desert for a very, very long time. In fact, I kind of laugh a little bit when people are like, oh, we've got three or four generations in Arizona. That's cute. I have an ancestor who's heard [inaudible 00:00:35] given by Father Keno in 1695.
Todd Sanders (Host):
The [inaudible 00:00:38].
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
So Fontes has been around for a while. Went to Arizona State. I'm a Sun Devil. Went to the University of Denver for law school and spent four years in the Marine Corps. I enlisted to try to see the world and I ended up getting stationed in Yuma, Arizona, which was...
Todd Sanders (Host):
The world comes to you.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
A little different. Yeah, the world came to us. But one thing that people might not know about me was that I was the lead male vocalist in the mariachi at Arizona State when I was an undergrad.
Todd Sanders (Host):
I love that.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
So if this was tequila.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Yes.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
A little while bit, I would probably start humming a few tunes.
Todd Sanders (Host):
So favorite song then? We have to know now.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Well, my favorite song is actually, it's called Rata de Dos Patas, and it's by Paquita la del Barrio. She's this really, really powerful singer who's very well known in Mexico, but not really outside of Mexico. And the song is called the Two-Legged Rat, as you could probably tell, and it's this whole series of delicious insults strung together. She's basically singing to this guy who did her wrong, and it's just really... It's beautiful. Which, I don't know. You got to have fun with it. You got to have fun. There's a few love songs I like too, but that one's a lot of fun.
Todd Sanders (Host):
After the podcast, go take a look at that. Go listen. Rata de dos patas. Take a look and let us know what you think. So we do hear about people being here for one or two generations, obviously your family's longer. It seems to be getting hotter and hotter in your experience. Is that what you're seeing? Is it hotter or longer?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah. When I was a kid, I taught swimming lessons in Nogales, and you could actually almost set your clock by the monsoon in the summertime, and we'd get the kids out of the pool, storm would come through, a little bit of lightning here and there. It wasn't maybe 12 minutes later, back in the water, here we go. Just the rain would come through every day for that period of time. It's very different now. It's unpredictable. The extremes are a little more extreme, and so we're going to have to really start paying attention to how we live and how we deal with all of this if we're going to continue to grow.
Todd Sanders (Host):
You bet. You bet. Well, let's get into your role. I think people sort of intuitively know what the Secretary of State does, but maybe a little primer on the work of the Secretary of State, which is pretty broad.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Well, yeah. So we've got three major divisions in the Secretary's office. The most fun one for me is libraries, archives, and public records. That's where we house an enormous amount of information about Arizona. I'm a big history buff and we just got some projects moving where we're digitizing a lot of old newspapers from a lot of the communities in Arizona. So you see some really, really interesting stories about folks and communities that kind of tie the whole story together. It's really nice. The second division is our business services division, which is kind of near and dear to my heart because it's got a lot of ways. It's sort of the grease on the skids, right? Government has to do certain things to make a lot of other stuff work, and we're happy to improve that. I'm sure we'll talk about some of that stuff. The one that is the most active now and has been is our election division. And what we have there are a whole series of sub parts.
We do campaign finance, the elections procedures manual is worked on by our lawyers and our election director. We do some candidate services and other things. We also kind up staff and down staff when it comes to petition signature time and things like this. So that's a really busy part of our work as well.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Well, it's such a broad portfolio, I'm assuming, thinking back to, for instance, former Governor Moffert who was Secretary of State, I'm assuming that at that time a much different platform and much different mission than what you're seeing today.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Well, and here's the thing, it is different, but I'm an optimist, right? So there's a lot of folks who were saying a lot of stuff that's not true, demonstrably false in many cases, but what we do see is this silver lining to this cloud, and that is that over the last several years, we've had this, what you could call a slow rolling civics lesson. People are starting to understand the process more that they once took for granted. They're starting to ask questions about, well, how does this work? How does that work? And we're very happy to help people understand these processes so they can understand better how this democracy works. And that's always a good thing. So there is some good that comes with all the challenges, but some of the challenges remain.
Todd Sanders (Host):
You bet. A lot of good opportunity. So prior to this role, county recorder, but since 22 in this role, what's been some of the biggest challenges and opportunities? I think obviously you've talked about one of those.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah, I think the biggest challenge was coming into an institution that had been, for generations, underfunded, underappreciated, understaffed, and so really bringing it up to where it needed to be. It's really hard to know what the mission is supposed to be, understand what the statutory duties are, and then not be able to perform because there's no resources. And so I think one of the biggest challenges we've had is convincing the legislature and the other folks that are involved in the budgeting process we've got to fund this thing. People are demanding perfection out there, and we can get pretty well up there, but we can't do a lot of the stuff that you want us to do unless you fund it. Campaign finance, for example. Arizona's passed Prop 2-11. They obviously want to see where the money's coming from and where it's going to. I can't do it if the core architecture of my IT systems are 12 years old. I just can't.
And so I want to give the services that people demand, but without the resources... In business services as well. We want this little corner of government to run at the speed of business. I can't do it. You want a Lamborghini but you're giving me a Yugo. Let's get in the middle somewhere.
Todd Sanders (Host):
You just dated yourself, by the way.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah, a little bit. But let's get moving on making sure that we've got the resources to provide the services that people want so that we can, like I said earlier, continue to grow and prosper.
Todd Sanders (Host):
So relative to other states, and I know you're talking to your colleagues around the country, how well positioned are we?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
As far as?
Todd Sanders (Host):
As far as funding and making sure that you're able to get the job done.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Oh, we're not anywhere close to the top. I'd say at best we're in the bottom third, maybe the bottom fifth.
Todd Sanders (Host):
So work to be done.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
There's a lot of work to be done, and it's not like I just want to spend a bunch of money. I want to provide the services that Arizona deserves, not just in business services, not just in library and archives, not just in elections, but as the Department of State. And without the resources, we just can't deliver. And so I'm hoping to continue to beat the drum on that and make sure that we can get Arizona what it deserves.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Absolutely.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah.
Todd Sanders (Host):
So pivoting a little bit to the recorder side. Talk to us a little bit about the differences in those two roles or both. Obviously there is an election function for both, but maybe sort of the differences and similarities.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Really simple differences. Imagine for a moment that the world of elections is a professional sports league. The Secretary of State in Arizona is the commissioner. Sets out the rules, certifies the officials, makes sure that the teams have the resources they need to get out there and play, and it's the counties that do the actual work. They're the ones engaged in the game. They pick the polling places, the poll workers, they're the ones who do all of that training at that level. They do the balloting, the ballots and the ballot tabulation. They're responsible for voter registration. We make sure to certify the election's officials. We make sure to certify their equipment. We do logic and accuracy testing before and after each election to make sure that there's nothing wrong or unusual about all of the equipment that actually does the tabulation activities. And so we have this great relationship with all 15 counties, and I'm the first secretary of state in, gosh, since the early eighties that actually has run elections at the county level.
So when we came in January of 2023, my administration's full folks from the county so we knew which questions to ask. We knew what folks needed. We had built those relationships already over years of work, and I think we've done really well. So I think our preparation for 24 is about as good as it could be.
Todd Sanders (Host):
And so those relationships with the county recorders, does that still continue today?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah, absolutely. But it's not just the county recorders, it's the boards of supervisors, it's the elections directors. A lot of other folks are engaged in the process. So in Arizona, each county board of supervisors is actually the election board. In other places, they're appointed. We elect them. They're the library board too. They have different roles. But the county recorder is the registrar of voters in each of the counties. So they own all of the data. Now, Maricopa and Pima County have their own core voter registration systems. We hold the one for the rest of the counties, all 13. So we've got a 13 one and one system here in Arizona. Again, it's an illustration of that bottom up nature. The counties run our elections, we make sure everything's good to go, regulate. Sometimes we get into a little tussle with some folks who have different opinions of how to do it, but we try to follow the law, we try to enforce the law, and we try to get the resources that are necessary for them to do their jobs.
Todd Sanders (Host):
And certainly we've learned that one of the important functions of the supervisors is they also certify the elections, correct?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Absolutely. It's a ministerial role. It's basically a statutory mandate that that happen. And the best follow-up is are we worried about any of that happening in 2024? And my answer is, not really. And here's why. In 2022, there was one county where a couple of the supervisors refused to certify the election, and they were indicted for interfering with the secretary's ability to do her job. That was when Governor Hopps was the secretary. And so there's a little bit of a sort of Damocles hanging over the heads of folks who might want to take that path. So we're discouraging that because the Attorney General's busy enough. She doesn't need to be indicting anymore supervisors.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Right. Absolutely. Well, we just had sort of the first test. We just had the primaries. Give us the rundown. What were the highs? What were the lows? What would you want to improve?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Well, here's the interesting thing. We had the presidential preference election in March, and within a week of that, we actually had jurisdictional elections in a couple of our municipalities. Then in May, we had some other jurisdictional elections. And then at the end of July, we had our primary. So we've already had four elections in Arizona this year. Folks kind of don't realize that sometimes if they're out of those districts. This system's run relatively smoothly. We've had a couple of hiccups like we always have in every election, some little thing happens. It's a human endeavor. We're never going to get it perfect. We've never said we're going to get any of it perfect in Arizona, but we do really darn well. Arizona's voters have more options on how they can vote than just about any other citizens in the rest of the United States of America.
By the use of some of our technology, they can not only do it in more ways, but in more places than just about anybody in the United States for those counties that do vote centers and allow voting anywhere in the county. So we really do well by our voters, and I think generally speaking, voters are pretty satisfied with the way we do work. At least that's what the numbers tell us when we do our surveys, so I trust the numbers a lot more than I trust the pundits.
Todd Sanders (Host):
So looking back at now, to your point, for elections during that primary season, anything that stuck out in terms of things that really went well or things that you'd like to improve?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Well, both. Things that went well were our ability to communicate across the board. I think our media partners did a great job helping us talk about deadlines. Our law enforcement partners did a great job helping us sort of make sure that everything went smoothly and they were available. Nothing necessitated their responses, which was great, so we were really happy about that. And again, some of the things that didn't go as well, we weren't able to do some of the other public outreach that I would've liked to do to try to get participation up in those primary elections. That's, again, because of budgeting. Public education is so incredibly important. When you want to understand what more Arizonans think, you got to get more Arizonans voting. That's the one way you can say, this is the direction that the state wants to go in. Not you necessarily or me, but all of us together. That community decision making is what democracy is all about. It's what the United States of America is all about.
And so a broader view of what more people think is always going to help inform that better, and so I'd love to see more effort put into outreach into all of our communities so we can get that truer understanding of Arizona's intentions.
Todd Sanders (Host):
What was the general turnout? I mean, as an average?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Well, for the primary election, I want to say it was something less than... It was about 30, 32%, in that range. Primary elections usually are about that. It was a little on the lower side. For the general election though, we're expecting pretty high turnout. There's a lot of excitement.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Really?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
There's a lot of excitement for the fall.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Yeah. Well, let's go ahead. Let's head in that direction now.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Is that the segue you needed?
Todd Sanders (Host):
That's a great segue. Good, thank you. And we were talking about this a little bit before we started that this ballot could be a little long.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Oh, it's going to be terribly long. So nine of our 15 counties will have two cards to their ballot. Now in election speak, that's two physical pages. And in Maricopa County, which is where sixty-something percent of our voters are, the average ballot has 78 elections on it. Now, in the elections world, we look at each election as separate. So election for president, election for Senate, election... So questions, right? 78 is a lot. So what we're hoping people will do is vote early, right? Get your ballot in the mail or go vote in person early because the length of the ballot itself could be problematic come election day. Now, I don't want to discourage anybody from voting anywhere under any circumstances, but because you've got a lot of options, Arizona, and because you've got a really, really long ballot, we're encouraging folks, figure out a way to vote early, make a plan either by mail or in person, and if you're going in person, you're going to have to bring the appropriate ID with you. You can go to Arizona.vote for those information.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Okay, so bring your ID. Passport not going to do it?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Passport's not going to do it because it doesn't have your physical address on it. A utility bill and a passport works. And again, those lists can be found pretty easily at arizona.vote.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Okay. And to your point, there are some options before election day, one is voting centers that are going to be open, correct?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yep. Yep.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Let's talk about mail in ballot. There's been a lot of talk about whether or not those are secure, whether or not those are something you can rely on. Maybe speak to that a little bit.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah, I think there's a delicious irony in those rumors, innuendos and conspiracy theories in that in 2020, I got a postcard from one of the presidential candidates who had been decrying the security of voting by mail, but the postcard was to sign me up for voting by mail, and it had his picture on it. So look, we will just get to brass tacks on this. It was Republicans in Arizona who created the system of balloting by mail, no excuse, absentee voting is what we call it in the election administration world. Helen Purcell, my predecessor in the recorder's office, worked for a lot of years to improve that system and make it the great system that it is now. Much credit to her and her staff, a lot of whom I inherited when she left, and we kept them on board.
They're national experts in this field. They run an amazing show down there,. Now under recorder Stephen Richer, and these processes honestly have been adopted by a lot of different jurisdictions, not just in Arizona, but nationally because they're pretty well recognized. So when you look at the checks and balances, and you look at the way we administer our elections by mail here in Arizona, the conspiracy theories kind of go out the window pretty quick.
Todd Sanders (Host):
So going back to that benchmark that I talked about earlier about the rest of the country. In terms of our process, our system for mail-in ballots, where do you rank us with the rest of the country?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
We're near the top, right near the top because we have...
Todd Sanders (Host):
Why?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Well, we've got some bits and pieces that all work together. And here's the interesting thing. When we're talking about elections, you often hear criticism of one bit, but those conversations will ignore some of the other checks and balances that are related to that. So here's really the way it works. First, you got to be registered to vote, and that means that the county recorder has already checked to make sure that you're at an address that's supposed to be the address, so you're on that particular list, right? Then you got to have asked for that ballot to come to you. They will not just send it out.
Todd Sanders (Host):
It doesn't just appear.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
And then particularly in general elections. Now, jurisdictional elections are different, but general elections, that's how it works. Then when the ballot comes out to you, it's going to come to you. There's a barcode on the ballot and it's marked as election mail. That means the post office treats it a little differently than first-class mail. It does not get forwarded. Election mail will not get forwarded.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Return to send.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
It's going to go right back to sender. That's important. Also, the barcode that is on there tracks directly back to the county recorder's office. You can see where that ballot is in the process, and that's where our ballot tracking system that we put together in Maricopa County, then Pima County when I was down there and now statewide, is great because you can get notifications when your ballot gets mailed to you. You can also check with USPS. They have a service that shows you every day what mail is coming into your post office. Into your mailbox, I should say. Then once you're done with that, on the way back again, that's going to get tracked with the barcode on it. Then we get it for signature verification. And those folks that do the signature verification, I think they're actually better than some of the folks that do it in law enforcement agencies, and here's why.
They not only get trained by the same trainers that take care of training the FBI, but they do a lot of it. Every candidate petition, every initiative petition, every ballot that's come through, these folks have years and years doing multiple thousands of signatures. They can tell pretty darn quickly whether there's something wrong with these signatures. And there are three layers of human checks on each of these signatures, so that signature verification system is pretty solid. Then it goes, once it's signature verified, good to go, then it'll go to a bipartisan board that gets a big stack of them. And the physical way that they separate the envelope from the ballot guarantees anonymity because what they'll do is they'll remove the envelope and the ballot from one another without unfolding the ballot. Then they'll count how many ballots they've got, count how many envelopes they've got, catalog those, and then they'll open up the ballots to make sure that they're not torn, that they don't have coffee stains and wrinkled up so they can go through, then they send that off to tabulation.
It's a great system and it's very secure. And now we have that ballot tracking part of it, which increases the accountability. So if you want, you could sign up, you get text or emails 60 days beforehand. You get a text or email when it gets mailed to you, you get one when it gets back to them, and then you get another one when it's been signature verified and sent for tabulation. So you can actually track your ballot through the system passively. They'll just automatically it'll come to you when that barcode passes through those different steps in the process. So it is safe, it is secure. It's actually one of the best ways to do it because let's say, for example, you mail it back and you don't get that text or that email for a week or two weeks and you voted early, right? Because we're all going to vote early. You can call up and say, "Hey, I want a replacement ballot," And you can go down voter replacement ballot, they'll cancel that other one. It'll never make it to signature verification because it'll be canceled on the barcode on the outside.
So we've got all these catches and checks and balances in the system that make it work really, really well. I've got a lot of confidence in that system.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Well, and I feel good knowing all these checks and balances. And I've been in this a long time, and I didn't know to the extent that these ballots are checked. So what about this? Oh, people that are dead are getting ballots, things like that. Speak to that a little bit.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Oh yeah, that'll happen. Garbage in, garbage out. We've got systems that we try to clean, we try to maintain a lot, but unfortunately... Again, this is a human endeavor, and sometimes these bits of information will get through the system. Interestingly, it is a de minimis percentage that usually doesn't have that much of an impact. But moreover, throughout those checks and balances, you get someone who's passed away who gets a ballot, there's still going to be a signature verification.
Todd Sanders (Host):
If I go in and fill it out and sign it, they're going to catch it on the...
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah, they're going to catch it on that side or in some of the other spaces that we operate. So do these things happen occasionally? Yes. Is it a real problem for our system? No, but we could always improve.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Sure. No, absolutely. Well, let's get into the other part of that. Obviously, to your point, a lot of elections or questions on the ballot, so lines will probably be long.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
I hope not. I hope people vote early and avoid election day.
Todd Sanders (Host):
I'm probably going to do that. I love going to vote, but I probably will, but assuming that. So thinking about returns, we're going to start to see results. Maybe speak to that a little bit. Obviously there's always that first tranche right at seven o'clock, is it?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
It's eight P.M.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Eight P.M.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Just after eight.
Todd Sanders (Host):
We'll see that first tranche, but then it's going to take some time, I'm assuming.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Well, and it's going to take a little bit longer because the legislature has added yet another layer of, I think, unnecessary, but they think it's good, another catch on counting the physical ballots at the polling place and then inventorying them again when they get to the warehouse.
Todd Sanders (Host):
So for the same number at the polling place as well as...
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah. And these are the mail-in ballots. And so to me, because of the checks and balances we have in the system, I think it's unnecessary and it will cause more delay, which nobody wants. But that's what they asked for. So that's what they're going to get. So let me tell you whose ballot gets announced when.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Okay.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Right. So that eight o'clock bucket that you're talking about, that's all of the people who voted early before probably Sunday or Monday, that got tabulated before Sunday or Monday. So if you've got it mailed in early, there's a very high likelihood that you're going to be in that eight P.M. set of numbers. And the more people that do that, the higher percentage, the easier it is to call the races. Then as the evening goes on, the ballots on election day that were tabulated on site... Now, these are not the early ballots that were handed in.
Todd Sanders (Host):
They were dropped in.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
These are the folks who went and checked in, got a physical ballot and then went through the tabulators. We've got to get the data from those tabulators. Then what happens is all of the folks who dropped off their ballot by mail, all of those ballots have to go through the exact same process that your ballot went through even though you mailed it back two weeks before election day. It's got to go get scanned, it's got to go get signature verified, then it has to come back to the warehouse, get opened, go through the early boards, which is a Republican and a Democrat, or different parties who are opening these and separating them, do all those checks and balances. So turning in your ballot on election day, if it's an early ballot, that's what delays the tabulation. Or I should say that's what delays the reporting.
We will have official results 10 to 13 days out. Anything that you hear before that is unofficial and could change. So I always tell people, just wait, right? It's not going to change the world. The number you get at the official one is the number you get at the official one. Interestingly though, and on that note, what I'm hoping that we will see is if there are challenges to the election, I'm hoping they happen after the canvas because you can't challenge an election that hasn't been certified because there's no election there.
Todd Sanders (Host):
There's nothing there.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
There's nothing there to fight over. So that's sort of some of the things that people don't think about too much sometimes.
Todd Sanders (Host):
So if you see something in the election, a huge margin, it's probably what's going to stay, but if they are narrow margins, don't assume anything.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Never assume anything. I mean, in 2020, I was up by a hundred thousand votes on election night. We felt pretty good, but then we looked to see how many ballots were out there and we were like, whoa. And Stephen Richard squeezed me out. But that's how Arizona is, and actually that's how we've always been.
Todd Sanders (Host):
So be patient.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Patience is a virtue.
Todd Sanders (Host):
So I was at a national US Chamber conference, and one of the things that people kept asking me, they were asking about the races here, and I think that there's a general perception that we tend to be ticket splitters here, which is interesting because people I think see us one way, but I think we're a lot less monolithic than that. Is that...
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, all you got to do is look at... I think the best example of that would've been 2018, governor Ducey and Senator Sinema came out on top in that one, and a lot of people really were kind of wondering about that one. But look, we are independent in spirit and in nature, and if you look at the makeup of the precincts for a lot of those numbers split in the precinct themselves, in Maricopa County specifically where I was, I didn't really look at a lot of the rest of the state, it was right around the one-on-one loop. So you're not out in the exurbs, you're kind of in the suburbs-ish, and there's a lot of reasons to go both ways on the same ballot, and that's what ended up happening in 2018. And we've seen it a lot since.
If you look at my race, for example, in 2022, our estimate is we had about 103,000 Cary Lake Adrian Fontes voters. And the way that we're looking at that is I won by 120,000 and the governor won by 17,000, so just basic math will tell you there's about a hundred thousand in there and that makes sense that Arizona does that. And when we've seen it historically... And so it's not unusual. Those of us who have really looked at the numbers don't see any surprises when we see a Democrat, a Republican, a Democrat, a Republican. It's just the way Arizona is.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Absolutely. To your point, independent.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Very much so.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Very independent in terms of the way we vote.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Very much so.
Todd Sanders (Host):
The last thing I'll ask you about as it relates to, well, all elections, the rules for margins and recounts were changed by the state legislature. May we speak to that a little bit?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah, I think that was foolish and it was poorly informed. We had rules that had served Arizona and served Arizonans very, very well for a very long time. And then based on a lot of conspiracy theories and innuendo, and not looking at statistics or math or numbers at all, because the legislative record is very clear this was based on rumors and innuendo, they'd reduce the margin necessary from 0.2% to 0.5%. And that reduction, especially when you have close races, is going to cost Arizona a lot of money. And the problem in the presidential race, because it's a unique race with very specific post-election timelines, is we run up against ECCRA, which is the Electoral College, I don't know, Electoral College Reform Act, I think is what it was. And there's a very, very narrow possibility, although we've worked real hard to mitigate that, that we could run up against that deadline in a way that's very uncomfortable because of this reduction of the threshold.
In a lot of other races, it's going to cost us a bunch of money as well, and nobody thought about that. Nobody talked about that when it was sponsored by Michelle Ugenti-Reeda back in the day. It doesn't make any sense from a mathematical perspective, from a data science perspective, from a statistical perspective, frankly, it doesn't make any sense from a political perspective either, because again, it's going to cost Arizona a lot of money, and if there's anything we know about Arizona is they don't like spending tax dollars on things that are unnecessary. And so the number of races that are actually going to be impacted are de minimis because our systems are pretty darn good, but the amount of money that it's going to cost just to placate this nonsensical conspiracy theory culture that we're into now, it's kind of silly.
Todd Sanders (Host):
So more to come.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Sadly, yeah. There will be more recounts and it's going to cost us a lot more money unnecessarily. Yeah.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Okay. Well, looking towards the next session, any thoughts from you in terms of election-related legislation you'd like considered or not considered?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
That's all going to depend on the makeup of the legislature. The Democrats find themselves in a one-seat minority in both chambers. If they manage to flip one or both houses and give the governor a ruling majority there, the dynamic will shift significantly. That notwithstanding, my office is working on two major pieces of legislation right now. One of them is a technical fix bill that goes through and looks at a lot of the things that need to be kind of tweaked around. I'll give you an example. Years ago we had a rule when I was the Maricopa County recorder, we had a rule about tying ballots together with red string, but it was a rule from the punch card ballot days.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Back in the day.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Which is 25, 30 years pas., we could not comply with the law because there were no holes in the ballots.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Back when we had Yugos.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Back when we had Yugos, right? So when we got office at the recorder's office, I was like, let's see if we can work with the counties across the state and try to fix some of these things. So there's still some technical stuff that needs to be looked at carefully, I think, and we'll do a bill on that side, and then there's some other reform things that are kind of bigger dreamier things that I'd love to see. But we'll base our proposals on the makeup of the legislature because that will tell us what Arizonans want.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Well, certainly on the technical corrections, I applaud you for that. It's not sexy. No one gets on TV for that.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Oh, that's a mess.
Todd Sanders (Host):
But these are really important changes to our statute, and everywhere. All statute in Arizona has to be updated every once in a while, correct? So I applaud you for doing that.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Thank you.
Todd Sanders (Host):
It's a lot of work, but it's worth it.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah, absolutely. There's actually one other division in the office that I didn't mention that always gets left out. It's our rules guys. So I've got a division in the Secretary of State's office that makes rules on how the state should make rules.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Okay. All right. You want to explain that?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah. So you've got a set of rule-making processes. Those processes are the rules on rules, and that's what these guys take care of.
Todd Sanders (Host):
So Department of Environmental Quality is going to promulgate rules based on Statute.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
There are and ways that they can, and ways that they cannot make those rules. Those ways, those rules on making rules, we take care of those.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Okay. That is a very...
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Little known fact. Super obscure, a little nook. They've got this tiny little office, but you know what? Some of the hardest working people you know.
Todd Sanders (Host):
They'd have to be.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Well, there is another area where you're engaged in, and I'm assuming it's probably growing in nature given what's happening with TSMC and a lot of these companies that are coming in from overseas, but there's an international component as well.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah, absolutely. We've been very engaged with international partners who are looking to the enormous opportunities for growth here in Arizona, not just with TSMC and Intel, but all the peripheral businesses that are possible there. We're a chomping at the bit for these opportunities. We had some folks from Argentina because there's a particular region, a province in Argentina, that has a lot of manufacturing going on there. Everything they build has semiconductors in it, and guess what? They want to buy them from the United States. They don't want to buy them from China or Taiwan. So the opportunities that we're trying to engage in and build... I just had dinner and a meeting with the new Consul General from the United Kingdom late last week. He's a great guy. Got to know each other a little bit, and we're starting to look at ways that we can tie in the UK to Arizona. We've got those dailies that go back and forth to London. We're thinking about maybe expanding or asking the city to work on that with us.
So there's a lot of opportunities across the world to engage with Arizona, particularly because of the CHIPS Act and the investment that TSMC has made as well. So we're excited about engaging in that so that we can continue to expand opportunities for Arizona.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Oh, appreciate that work. That's incredibly important, especially with some of our top allies.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Here's the fun thing, particularly for your audience. I'm a Democrat, sure, I like my warm and fuzzy stuff over here, but I can't do that unless I've got a solid economy where we've got a lot of opportunities for growth, and then we can take care of the warm and fuzzy stuff too. So it's a symbiotic relationship, I think, a feel-good space for people to have their families and have great quality lives at the same time as growing opportunity and prosperity for people. Those things can work very well together, but you got to have both.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Well, I appreciate that. Thank you.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah, you bet.
Todd Sanders (Host):
The production side of the economy matters, and thank you for recognizing that.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Sure.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Before we wrap up, I would like to get your thoughts on something that we're going to have new here. From statehood till today, we've never had a lieutenant governor, but we're about to have one. How is that going to change government and maybe your role?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Well, it's a sigh of relief for me.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Okay.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Well, it depoliticizes the Secretary of State's office because people looked at me and they're like, "Oh, you're a heart beat away from the governor's office." And I'm like, "Whoa, she's fine." And what it does is it allows... Well, look, first of all, the governor's job is way too big for one person in this state. Other states have a lot of different things in a lot of different offices. For example, in Colorado, the Secretary of State runs all of the motor vehicle division, all vehicle registrates, all that stuff. That's under the Department of Transportation, which is under the Governor. Water, highways, health, all of these things are concentrated in Arizona under one executive, which might seem efficient, but things get lost, and I think that's one of the reasons why we have some of the problems that we have. If you add a Lieutenant governor in there, so you've got another set of eyes and ears at the highest executive level who you can spread some of the wealth on the work with, it'll do two things.
Number one, I think it'll help manage stuff a little bit better because you'll have somebody who can really roll up their sleeves and get hands on while the other person is taking care of some of the other governor's stuff, which is a lot. Two, for me, it pulls the secretary a little bit away from the political fray, which is really important for this office. The Secretary of State, I've tried to treat it as nonpartisan as possible because of the business services aspect, because of the library and archives, and particularly because of elections. And so while I am an elected partisan, I try to make sure the office is nonpartisan as possible, and I think that'll help a little bit by putting somebody else in the middle of that line of succession. I didn't agree with it at first, but that's what the voters want, so that's what the voters are going to get, right?
Todd Sanders (Host):
Absolutely.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
We decide things through the democratic process. I don't have to like it, but that's the rules.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Well, and it is interesting if you look back on our history just being the last 20 years how many secretaries of state became governor.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah.
Todd Sanders (Host):
There's been...
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
A lot.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Interesting sort of freeway between those two.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
We've had a ton. And also, it's funny because we had an attorney general become governor when Bruce Babbitt ascended because there was a death in the secretary's office and Governor Castro went to be ambassador to Argentina, I think it was, or something. So that succession has happened quite a bit in our recent history. So it's an interesting thing to have watched and to be kind of personally engaged in, sort of that space, but it'll be nice to have that buffer so that we can just do the work.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Big change is coming.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah. Honestly, I don't think it's going to be that big of a change. We're one of three states in the union that has that sort of a setup, and so as far as everybody else is concerned, we're kind of coming into the fold.
Todd Sanders (Host):
All right. Well, excellent. Well, thank you for spending so much time with us today and truly for all the work that you're doing, especially on the election side right now. Clearly the business side always matters, but the election side, the world's watching, literally the world's watching, and Arizona in particular is, I think, a place where people are watching so thank you for that work. Before you go, we're going to do a quick lightning round with you.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Okay.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Since we're talking elections, what was your first election you voted in? Maybe think about president?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
My first election that I voted in was in 19... It would've been 1988 if I voted.
Todd Sanders (Host):
That would've been Bush and...
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
That would've been Bush and Dukakis. Yeah.
Todd Sanders (Host):
You didn't vote?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
I don't know if I did. I was a freshman at ASU at the time, so I can't say that I was in the voting headspace at that point. I was thinking I had other priorities as an eighteen-year-old kid from Nogales in Tempe.
Todd Sanders (Host):
I can only imagine.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Well, I mean, we could check the voting records.
Todd Sanders (Host):
We could go check and see if they had a poll.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
I'm not one of those persons who's going to say, "Oh, I voted in every election that I'm eligible." That would be nonsense.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Maybe if they had a polling station at the Sun Devil house, you might've voted.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
You remember the Devil House?
Todd Sanders (Host):
I do. Of course. Absolutely. That was my first election too. Okay. First job. What was your first job?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Oh, my first actual job job? Well, there was one job working in a grocery store when I was a sophomore in high school the summer after, and that's because I had had an accident. I ran into a lady's car when I was late to a basketball game and I had to pay my dad back. And so I got a job at a grocery store bagging groceries and sweeping floors and doing all that stuff. But also that summer I was a swim instructor at Pete Draculage's pool. He used to be the head basketball coach in Nogales High School many, many, many years ago. So I was his last head swim instructor. A few years later he ended up retiring.
Todd Sanders (Host):
So swim instructor, not driving instructor. Obviously your talents were in swimming.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Something like that. Yeah.
Todd Sanders (Host):
What'd you learn from those jobs that you think about today?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
That you got to show up. You got to show up. You got to be there, right? You got to show up no matter where. It's 85% of the job is showing up and being present and paying attention to what's going on around you. That's going to take you so far, and it has for me. In the times when I'm distracted or I'm not actually there, that's when things go a little cattywampus.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Kudos to dad for making you get a job to pay off that...
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah. Well, it was dad and mom. They doubled up on me.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Oh, there you go. You had no chance. Okay. So obviously you're well traveled and you do deal in the international space. Favorite country that you visited?
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Outside of the United States?
Todd Sanders (Host):
Oh yeah, of course.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Because this country, there's a lot to see here.
Todd Sanders (Host):
There is a lot
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Favorite country that I've visited. Well, I haven't seen a ton of all this country. Look, I loved Athens. I didn't make it to any of the rest of Greece. That was a lot of fun. But you know what? Mexico City. It's like Taipei, which is great. They have those boulevards with trees and all that sort of stuff like that, but there is so much in Mexico City. It's such an enormous place and it just feels familiar.
Todd Sanders (Host):
And they have mariachis.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
And they have a lot of Mariachis and they have lucha Libre.
Todd Sanders (Host):
They do. You know one of the things that I loved? We were on a trip down there years ago, I think when it was Mayor Stanton, now Congressman. There's one of their large parks almost like their Central Park, and there is two statues, one of MLK and one of Lincoln facing each other in Mexico City, which is the coolest thing.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah. Well, there's a statue of George Washington outside of the... What is the name of that museum in Trafalgar Square in London.
Todd Sanders (Host):
In London.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah. They've got a statue of Julius Caesar on one side of the big museum, the National Museum there, and then the other side, they've got a statue of George Washington in London. Well, I mean both of them...
Todd Sanders (Host):
You got to love it.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Were not kind to the British, so I just think... I like statues a lot, now that you mention that.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Well, as our airport director would tell you, we have a direct flight to London, so if you want to go check it out.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Yeah.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Head right over to Trafalgar Square.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
Go to Trafalgar Square and there's a big museum. I think it faces the Thames, although there's other stuff in between, and then there's George Washington I think is on the right-hand side as you face it. And Julius Caesar's on the left-hand side.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Perfect. Well, what a great way to end our conversation, our time together. Thank you again for being here, and we will hopefully get together with you for a recap after all is said and done.
SOS Adrian Fontes (Guest):
I'll be very happy to do that. Awesome. Absolutely.
Todd Sanders (Host):
Thank you. Appreciate it so much.