In This Issue

Hello, and welcome back to The Franchise!

Three prominent 2020 election deniers won GOP primary elections in Arizona for secretary of state, governor and attorney general. It’s concerning news for the future of election administration in such a crucial state.  

Arizona GOP state Rep. Alexander Kolodin, who is a known election denier, won the Republican primary for secretary of state this week. Kolodin is a member of the right-wing Arizona Freedom Caucus and in 2023 was sanctioned by the State Bar of Arizona for his participation in the so-called “Kraken” lawsuits, challenging the results of the 2020 election. 

The fact that an election denier could be in charge of running elections in a state that has been ground zero for election conspiracy theories since 2020, is, of course, a harrowing prospect. 

Kolodin will face off against Democratic incumbent Secretary of State Adrian Fontes in November. 

Staunch MAGA ally Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) won the GOP nomination for Arizona governor this week too, and will now face off against Democratic incumbent Gov. Katie Hobbs in November. 

Biggs, who is the former chair of the Freedom Caucus, has a rich election denial history. He has consistently supported and repeated Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and was subpoenaed by the House January 6 select committee in May of 2022 as part of its investigation into the events leading up to the attack and efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. 

On January 6, 2021, Biggs objected to the counting of electoral votes in Arizona, as well as five other Biden-won states that were all subject to election misinformation in the aftermath of 2020. 

“I object to counting the votes of Arizona electors because the federal courts went around the legislatively constructed mechanism for choosing Arizona's presidential electors allowing tens of thousands of voters to unlawfully cast votes,” Biggs wrote in a 2021 press release.

Hobbs had this to say about Biggs in a post on X this week: “Andy Biggs has spent his career selling out Arizona families for billionaires, special interests, and even convicted sex offenders.The more Arizonans learn about Biggs, the more they'll realize he's one big problem they can't afford.”

Lastly, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen secured the GOP nomination for attorney general this week. Earlier this month, Petersen complied with a federal grand jury subpoena — part of the administration’s ongoing investigation into non-existent fraud in the 2020 election. Petersen handed over documents to the FBI related to a 2021 scam of an election audit in Maricopa County that found no traces of election fraud.

As always, there is lots more to catch up on. Let’s dig in.

— Khaya Himmelman

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin continues to threaten state election officials with criminal persecution over non-citizen voting, in yet another attempt by the Trump administration to exert control over elections and elevate Trump’s conspiracy theories about non-citizens voting en masse for Democrats, a repeatedly debunked myth. 

Earlier this month, the DOJ sent election officials in all 50 states letters threatening criminal prosecution if non-citizens are found on voter rolls.

On Friday, during a press conference, Mullin doubled down on these threats, demanding that states run their voter rolls through a federal database — or risk losing federal election-related funding and/or face possible criminal persecution. 

"We're saying that the machines had to be secure, and that your voter registration list needs to be scrubbed," Mullin said on Friday. 

“We need to make sure that individuals that are legally able to vote are voting,” he continued. "If you’re illegal and attempted to vote, or you tried to vote illegally for someone else, we will find you and we will charge you.”

Mullin is insisting that states participate in the Federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, a database typically used for verifying the citizenship and immigration status of individuals applying for certain governmental benefits. It’s been co-opted by the Trump administration to purge alleged non-citizens from voter rolls. There is evidence, however, that this tool has been incorrectly flagging eligible citizens to be booted from the voter rolls. 

“If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections, and they chose not to, then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time,” Mullin said.

This comes as the use of the database for the Trump administration’s aims has been challenged in court. The use of the SAVE system to purge voters from the rolls was blocked by a federal judge last month. 

The DOJ has officially earned its 16th loss (with an impressive zero wins) in the administration’s ongoing and failing campaign to seize sensitive voter roll data from the states. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Kari Dooley, a Trump-appointee, dismissed the DOJ’s case against Connecticut, ruling that the state’s voter data is not something the federal government is entitled to. 

For many long (and embarrassing) months, the DOJ has been desperately trying to force at least 44 states and Washington, D.C. to give the department access to unredacted voter roll data, which includes private information like Social Security numbers and drivers license numbers, to the federal government.

The DOJ has been relying on provisions in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (CRA) to argue that the federal government is entitled to this type of personal identifying information. 

So far, not a single judge has agreed. 

“...the Court concludes that the Connecticut SVRL is not a record that falls within the scope of Title III, and is therefore not subject to the preservation and production requirements contemplated therein,” Dooley wrote in her order on Friday.

“This lawsuit was an illegal attempt to disenfranchise Connecticut voters and today, the court shut it down,” Connecticut’s Democratic Attorney General William Tong said in a statement on Friday. “The Constitution is clear: the President does not control our elections and has no right to manipulate Connecticut voter rolls. Connecticut follows federal law and takes its obligations under federal law very seriously. We will not be bullied into handing over sensitive voter information just because Trump demands it."

New York Times: How the G.O.P. Turned Olive Garden Into a Voter ID Talking Point

ABC News: State officials preparing if the federal government tries interfering with how they run elections

Democracy Docket: Georgia Secretary of State’s office responds to Trump DOJ threats, defends voting policies