Grand Canyon Times

On May 10, the nonprofit group America First Legal (AFL) announced in a tweet that it filed a lawsuit against Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to secure public records pertaining to the 2022 midterm elections in Maricopa County.

In a statement explaining the lawsuit, AFL said 55% of Arizona voters believe that the outcome of the 2022 election in Maricopa was impacted by problems during the election.

Ten days after the election, AFL requested information from the state, asking for all email communication with Katie Hobbs, then Secretary of State, Allie Bones, assistant Secretary of State, C. Murphy Hebert, director of communications and deputy communications director Sophia Solid.

AFL said it never received this information as it was deemed too much of a burden on staff to be able to fulfill. AFL says it will be dedicated to gaining this public information that the voters deserve.

“Democratic representative government only works when there is full transparency and when officeholders are accountable to the people," AFL senior counsel James Rogers said in a statement. "As James Madison said, ‘popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy.’"

The 2022 election was "perhaps the most controversial and contested in Arizona history," he added.

"In many Arizonans’ minds, that election was both farce and tragedy. Secretary Fontes and the Arizona Department of State shouldn’t be blocking access to what the people’s servants were saying as they administered an election marred by ‘failures’ and ‘technical problems,’" the attorney said. "It is astounding that Secretary Fontes would have the audacity to claim that it is an unreasonable burden to pull together nine days’ worth of emails from four people. The people of Arizona are entitled to know what their government is up to. Arizona’s Public Records Law requires it."

In the lawsuit, Rodgers writes “With public confidence in elections being so low, the need for transparency in government has never been higher. Arizona's Public Records Law is designed especially for times like now, to ensure that citizens understand how their elected representatives are conducting the business of government. When citizens see that public officers are faithfully carrying out their duties, then public confidence in our institutions increases. And if it is discovered that public officers are not acting in good faith, then transparency is essential for citizens to be able to hold their representatives accountable.”

 American First Legal is a non-profit organization created to protect the rights of all citizens to have their government put them first. The legal team of the organization is being used to fight corruption, violations of citizen rights and stop political overreach, it says on its website.