When MAGA supporters fueled by conspiracy theories angrily protested Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 win in Arizona, it fell to Recorder Adrian Fontes to certify the results in Maricopa, the state’s largest county surrounding Phoenix.
“I’ve been through the fire in Arizona at the very basic gestation of election denialism,” Fontes, a Democrat, told Raw Story, recalling how election conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Jacob Chansley, better known as the QAnon Shaman, screamed his name outside his office.
“I’m not going to let the b—–ds intimidate me,” he said.
Fontes now serves as Arizona’s secretary of state and will be responsible for certifying the state’s election results in the upcoming midterm elections, with two congressional races on the ballot that could help determine the balance of power in the House of Representatives.
Fontes will also be on the ballot as a candidate for reelection, running against a Republican challenger with a history of pushing discredited election conspiracies in court.
Fontes said he’s confident he can handle any barbs his opponent throws his way and, at the same time, maintain public trust while certifying the elections of the winners of nine House races on the ballot.
“We are the chief truth teller and the level setter,” Fontes said of himself and his fellow secretaries of state around the country. “We’ve got to be able to communicate clearly why people should have confidence in the outcome, regardless of the political result. I was the Maricopa County Recorder in 2020, and I oversaw my own defeat. I was the secretary of state in 2024 when Donald Trump won Arizona, and I oversaw the certification of his victory without complaint.”
Now, democracy defenders see a new threat looming against free and fair elections. The concern is less about vigilante mobs and more about an alphabet soup of armed federal agents swarming polling places, with the active encouragement of local Republican officials and candidates, under the pretext of deterring a phantom problem of non-citizen voting.
Republican candidates in election battlegrounds such as Michigan and Maine have begun to clamor for armed federal agents at polling places, following unfounded claims about non-citizen voting that Trump rolled out during a primetime speech and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin amplified at a press conference in July.
The goal is “make people afraid and sow chaos,” said Anna Dorman, a lawyer with Protect Democracy, a nonprofit that is suing to prevent the Trump administration from building a federal voter database. The point of the chaos, she said, is to lay the groundwork to challenge election certifications if, as predicted, Republicans lose the House, and possibly even the Senate.
“That certainly fits the playbook and strategy of sowing these lies so they can have these zombie issues that they can resurrect,” Dorman said. “Here are answers to questions that they manufactured to create chaos so they could use that to delay certification.”
Ed Martin, the former pardon attorney at the Department of Justice, told UK-based GB News on Tuesday that he had recently met with Trump to discuss the midterm elections, while predicting that “you’re going to see on election night, and around it, irregularities.”
Republican voters “need to be energized” to “protect the elections,” Martin said, adding that “we know that there are hundreds of thousands of illegals… on the voting rolls” in New Jersey alone.
A comprehensive review by the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research found that instances of noncitizens registering to vote and casting ballots are exceedingly rare.
“While no system can ever be perfect, in every state, election officials and other agencies thoroughly investigate these claims whenever they arise,” the report found. “These investigations find extremely few cases of noncitizens registering and even fewer cases of noncitizens voting, even among the most far-reaching claims. When rare instances of potentially improper registration or voting are found, officials swiftly take action to ensure U.S. elections remain secure.”
Trump’s Department of Justice has sued dozens of states to force them to turn over voter rolls, while Trump has attempted through an executive order to force the states to cross-check their voter rolls against a database of non-citizens maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. State officials argue that complying with the federal government’s demand would violate their citizens’ privacy. The courts have consistently upheld the state’s rights to retain control over their voter rolls.
Similar to Arizona, Michigan again finds itself in the middle of a firestorm of election conspiracies as state officials prepare to administer an election with a tight race between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers for U.S. Senate — one of six races rated “toss-ups” by the Cook Political Report — and two competitive House races, in the Detroit suburbs and Lansing, respectively.
At the center of the maelstrom is Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a lightning rod for election deniers going back to the 2020 election, who will shoulder responsibility for certifying the winners of the Senate and House elections. Deepening the cloud of suspicion Trump allies have placed over Benson, she will also oversee her own election, where she is a candidate for governor.
John James, the Republican candidate in the gubernatorial race, has suggested without evidence that his opponent supports voting by non-citizens based on her refusal to turn over the voter roll to the federal government. “Of course, Benson and her cronies are ‘urging high court to reject ballot challenge,’” James posted on X earlier this month. “Voting rights for illegal immigrants? Absolutely.”
During an interview with James last month, the right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson baselessly accused Democratic secretaries of state of rigging elections.
“The problem that we have, John, is that we’ve kind of seen this play out before where a secretary of state runs a very dodgy election campaign that is rife with fraud, but they end up winning because of the magic numbers at the end of the night,” Johnson said. “How will you prevent that from happening on election night?”
James responded by invoking the name of FBI Director Kash Patel.
“I’ve already had a good conversation with my friend Kash Patel, who has said already that the FBI will have a presence leading up to Election Day in Michigan, in both west Michigan and southeast Michigan and southeast Michigan,” James said.
The FBI did not respond to an email from Raw Story seeking confirmation of plans to deploy agents at polling places or an explanation for why they would be there.
“Cheaters will not be allowed to cheat, and we will have our eyes out, because we know that Jocelyn Benson has a record of having her thumb on the scale,” James said.
Benson could not be reached for comment for this story.
Bobby Charles, the Republican candidate for governor in Maine, where there is a closely fought Senate race between Republican Susan Collins and Democrat Troy Jackson, has similarly indicated he plans to call on White House border czar Tom Homan to send federal agents to polling places in that state.
“Here’s my secret,” Charles told supporters during a campaign stop last month. “I have a friend named Tom Homan. Tom and I used to go on Fox News together. Tom’s an awesome guy. I’m going to ask Tom, I’m actually — three or four weeks before the election, maybe three — I’m going to make an appeal for ICE and marshals to be at our voting booths.”
An email from Raw Story to the White House seeking comment on Homan’s behalf went unreturned.
Dorman said there’s no downside for Trump and his Republican allies to talk about putting armed federal agents at polling places.
“It’s all part of a broader strategy of causing chaos, especially if they end up deploying agents,” she said. “Or there’s not, but people are under the impression that there will be ICE agents at polling places. People might be more hesitant to vote because it seems like it’s not going to be safe. I expect them to talk a huge amount about ICE at polling places.”
If the presence of armed federal agents isn’t sufficient to discourage voters from going to the polls, Dorman said she believes the point of the “chaos” engendered by the Trump administration is to build pressure on secretaries of state to withhold or delay election certifications.
At least two Republican secretaries of state in states with tightly contested Senate or House races have trumpeted their efforts to combat noncitizen voting.
“And for all the people who say there is no evidence of noncitizens voting — come to Florida,” its Secretary of State Cord Byrd testified to the House Administration Committee in 2024. “We have the evidence, because I’m required — my office is required — to report it to the governor and the legislature every year.”
In 2025, the Florida Office of Election Crimes and Security, under the Secretary of State, referred 170 noncitizens for prosecution; the agency’s most recent report in January 2026 cited only five individuals who were actually charged. The report boasts that “Florida leads the nation in election security and integrity.”
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose likewise told the committee there should be “zero tolerance” for noncitizens registering to vote. His office has made hundreds of criminal referrals for alleged voter fraud, but the Associated Press reported in December 2024 that prosecutors were able to obtain indictments against only nine people for voting as noncitizens over a span of 10 years, one of whom was found to have died. LaRose boasted to the House committee that Ohio is “recognized as a gold standard for elections administration.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, whose signature will be required to certify a competitive U.S. Senate race and a closely fought House race on the southern tip of the state, has gone further by sharing a video that suggests he believes Democrats approve of noncitizens voting.
In 2024, Abbott shared a video on X that he captioned “Catholic nun speaking the truth,” which showed an unidentified woman saying, “I know that recently someone has made a motion that no one should be able to vote who cannot prove U.S. citizenship. I totally agree with that. But there are those in the Democratic Party who do not. So, we are up against not just an election, but an absolute war for good against good and evil.”
Byrd, LaRose and Abbott could not be reached for comment for this story.
Protect Democracy and other fair-elections groups have vowed, if necessary, to go to court to obtain orders to ensure that officials fulfill their duty to certify elections.
“The good news is the law is extremely clear around certification,” Dorman said. “It’s non-discretionary. They don’t have the right to evaluate and determine who the winners are. We feel very strongly on the legal basis that if you will not do this ministerial duty, then we will get a court order to ensure that it is done. We and other groups in the legal coalition can enforce certification.”
Fontes, the secretary of state in Arizona, told Raw Story he doubts that any of his Republican counterparts would bow to pressure from Trump and his allies to hold up certification of elections duly won by Democratic candidates.
“I think my Republican colleagues have enough strength to stand up against this administration,” Fontes said. “I think back to the Declaration of Independence that says government derives its power from the consent of the governed. Right now, this administration is not governing with the consent of the governed. The people will be heard at the polls. And I have no doubt that in this election the people will send a very pointed message.”
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