Regaining trust in our elections: a sit down interview with Secretary of State Adrian Fontes

Elections are repetitive things in Arizona: the major parties hold their primaries in the summer, general election voting ends in November and it takes days to count the ballots. And then in recent years, we have at least two years of deniers claiming the elections were stolen. Some might say that the 2022 election has been over for almost a year. But some candidates are still contesting the results in court, while the last legislative session saw a raft of bills that would reconfigure elections. Apart from never-ending election denialism, Arizona is seeing interest from organizations eyeing a third party presence on this battleground state’s ballots.   While there are still months until Arizona’s presidential primary, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, his staff and county election officials across the state are busy getting ready for what lies ahead.  This week on The Gaggle, a podcast by The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, hosts Ron Hansen and Mary Jo Pitzl are joined by Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to discuss how his office is preparing for a busy year in 2024, what he's doing to regain the trust in the elections process and how he'll handle President Trump's qualifications for the ballot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices