Democrats and voting advocacy groups have filed lawsuits against President Trump’s sweeping new executive order to limit mail-in voting ahead of this year’s midterm elections. “This is clearly an attempt for the president to pick his own voters,” says Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who is legally challenging Trump’s order.

Voting rights experts have decried the order as an unconstitutional attempt by Trump to seize control of election administration from the states and Congress. It directs the Department of Homeland Security to create a “state citizenship list” and the U.S. Postal Service to mail ballots only to “verified” voters.

Transcript

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Democrats and voting advocacy groups have filed three separate lawsuits against President Trump’s sweeping new executive order to limit mail-in and absentee voting ahead of this year’s midterm elections. Trump’s order directs the Department of Homeland Security to create a state citizenship list. It also directs the U.S. Postal Service to mail ballots only to “verified,” quote-unquote, voters.

Voting rights experts have decried the executive order as an unconstitutional attempt by Trump to seize control of election administration from the states and Congress. Plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits said, quote, “Attempts to end voting by mail are part of the Trump administration’s larger strategy to undermine elections and subvert the will of the people,” unquote.

Trump’s attack on mail-in voting comes just days after he defended his decision to recently vote by mail in Florida.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You know what? Because I’m president of the United States, and because of the fact that I’m president of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida, because I felt I should be here instead of being in the beautiful sunshine taking —

REPORTER: But you were in Palm Beach, sir, the last few weekends.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That’s right. And I — yeah —

REPORTER: Could you have gone in person?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And I decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn’t be there, because I had a lot of different things.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who’s blasted Trump’s executive order as, quote, “disgusting overreach from the federal government,” unquote. Arizona is among several states the Trump administration sued in order to access sensitive voter data. The state was also at the center of Trump’s false claims of election fraud in 2020.

Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, welcome back to Democracy Now! Why do you describe the president’s actions as “disgusting”? And explain Arizona’s mail-in vote system.

SECRETARY OF STATE ADRIAN FONTES: Well, thank you for having me, first.

And I call it disgusting because it is. First and foremost, Article I, Section 4 reserves the power to establish the time, place and manner of elections to the states alone and gives Congress a role. Now, the president has previously issued an executive order that he got shot down on. The rule of law now in the country is he doesn’t have a role in administering our elections. And yet he tried again. This is a lawless president, and that’s why this is a disgusting overreach. He’s already been told by the courts this is not his business, and yet he’s trying to do it again.

One of the other reasons that I called it that is because this is clearly an attempt for the president to pick his own voters. He doesn’t really care about the real voice of American voters, which would mean that he would expand the franchise. He would ask more and more ways to find more voters to be voting, qualified as they are, but to make sure that everybody had access, to make sure that all voters had convenient ways of casting their ballots, so that the governed could give their consent to the government. That’s the rule that we have been established by. So, but for both of those reasons, I think it’s disgusting.

Now, mail-in voting in Arizona is what’s kind of classified as a no-excuse absentee system. You don’t need an excuse to vote by mail. It was created by Republicans in the early 1990s. It has been promoted by them and kept them in power here in Arizona for quite some time. And it’s convenient.

And what’s also very important — let me give you an example. My own 80-something-year-old mom does not need to stand in line and be kind of pressured to fill out a two-page-long ballot, in some elections with up to 85 different elections on that two-page ballot, which we have seen in Maricopa County, Arizona. She doesn’t have to feel rushed. She can do it at the convenience of her home, at her kitchen table, on her couch, look up the propositions, you know, do research on the judges.

Our no-excuse absentee system, our mail-in voting system in Arizona, is robust. It is secure. And not only in 2016, but in 2024, it elected Donald Trump as president. So, what we have here is, I think, some confusion on the part of the president about what’s effective, what’s secure. And really, I think the maliciousness behind this has been shown bare on its face. He’s trying to pick his own voters.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Secretary of State Fontes, you mentioned that the mail-in voting system in Arizona dates back to the 1990s. Had there ever been complaints previously about the system before the Trump era?

SECRETARY OF STATE ADRIAN FONTES: Well, the one complaint we had about the system was that it used to be where the registrar of voters or the county recorders would mail a postcard to every voter every single election, and the voters would say, “Yes, I want a ballot by mail,” and send it back. Then they would send the ballot. So, that ended up getting stopped, and we had what was called a permanent early vote list. So, you would sign on to it, and that increased the vote-by-mail numbers year in and year out, without exception, until these election conspiracy theories and lies about vote-by-mail started. The list is no longer permanent because of the prior governor and Legislature made it so that it’s now called an active early vote list. And it’s easier to get dropped off that list, although you’re still registered and you can still vote.

So, the complaints have only really started under when Donald Trump was the president and he spread his lies either before an election — just in case he lost, he’d have an excuse — or after an election, because he felt like he should have won unanimously or some nonsense like that. I’m not even sure about how that works.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, earlier this year, you introduced statewide legislation, the Voters First Act. What does that do? And how are you trying to safeguard the integrity of the 2026 midterms in Arizona?

SECRETARY OF STATE ADRIAN FONTES: Well, the Voters First Act had 10 different components in it. And unfortunately, under the Republican leadership in the Legislature, it no longer, I think, is going to see the light of day. But it really made a whole bunch of different spaces in our elections much more secure. It gave us funding for the ERIC system. It made vote centers a part of the law, which means any voter in any county can vote anywhere in their county, no longer allowing for precinct-based voting only, which has shown to increase provisional ballots, which isn’t always great. And it did a variety of other things. It helped access. It helped convenience. It helped voters.

And it put a good chunk of money into the election budgets for our counties, which, because Arizona is a bottom-up state, the counties really do a lot of the work. I’m more of like a commissioner in a major sports league. We establish the rules. We certify the officials. We certify the equipment. It’s the counties that do a lot of the work. So, we were trying to bolster what they could do and really make it better for the voters, because that’s really kind of where the rubber meets the road.

AMY GOODMAN: Adrian Fontes, the latest news, Pam Bondi fired by President Trump, and I was wondering if you could comment on her tenure and how it affects your work as secretary of state for Arizona. As Juan pointed out in our earlier segment, the DOJ’s sending letters to nearly 40 states demanding sensitive information, including driver’s license and Social Security numbers from every registered voter. If you can talk about your resistance and where you go from here?

SECRETARY OF STATE ADRIAN FONTES: Well, my resistance started back in June of 2025 when I was asked to turn over a bunch of sensitive voter data, sort of some of what you mentioned, but also including mother’s maiden name, date and — day and month of birth, tribal ID numbers, things that we’re not allowed by law to turn over. So, they asked us to violate state and federal law. They asked us to violate the Privacy Act of 1974. I said no repeatedly, and then they sued the state of Arizona and my administration. We will continue to fight this fight in court, whether or not Pam Bondi is the attorney general. And as an aside, good riddance. She was terrible anyway. So, we’ll see what happens with the next one, hopefully better than the last, but I’m reluctantly hopeful.

But what’s going to happen in the future is I’m going to keep standing up for the voters in Arizona, whether they are Democrats, Republicans, independents or whatever. This is about the American voice. And I said it earlier. When we expand the franchise, we get a better idea of what Americans actually want. By narrowing and constricting through a lot of these different tactics that we see being used, what we’re doing is getting a narrower view. And a decision-maker has to have more information. Folks that are in leadership must understand what’s really going on out there. So, leaders who try to constrict voting rights, who try to shrink the voice of the American people, they’re actually short-changing themselves, and they’re going to be less effective.

That’s one of the reasons why once we’re done with this first term, I hope I can get another one come November, but we’re going to keep up this fight. As long as I am the secretary of state, we’re going to fight, number one, to protect our voters and their rights; number two, their data, which comes directly along with that; and, number three, continue to open access to all eligible Arizonans and Americans so that we can have that real voice represented in our government.

AMY GOODMAN: Adrian Fontes, we want to thank you for being with us, secretary of state of Arizona, elected in 2022, previously the Maricopa County recorder who oversaw the 2020 elections. He’s legally challenging Trump’s new voting order. And we will do an interview with you in Spanish after the broadcast and post it at democracynow.org.

When we come back, Palestinian activist Leqaa Kordia is out of ICE jail after a year. She joins us in studio. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “I Call Out to You,” composed by Ahmad Kaabour, performed right here in New York by the New York City Palestinian Youth Choir.