An Arizona Court of Appeals panel ruled unanimously 3-0 last week that Secretary of State Adrian Fontes illegally made revisions to the state’s Election Procedures Manual (EPM) due to violating rulemaking procedures.
The Republican Party — the Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP), the Republican National Committee, and the Yavapai County Republican Party — sued Fontes over the illegal changes. Even though progressive election attorney Marc Elias and top Democratic law firm Perkins Coie represented the defendants, the court found that the 2023 version of the EPM was invalid since Fontes only provided half the time for public comment that Arizona’s Administrative Procedures Act (APA) requires.
