Judge strikes down rule requiring counties to aid voters who go to wrong polling place

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes can’t force election officials to provide a way for voters who show up at the wrong polling place to cast a valid ballot, according to a new court decision striking down a key provision of the state’s election rulebook.

In 2023, Fontes wrote a policy into the state’s election procedures manual directing counties that assign voters to polling places to allow out-of-precinct voters to cast their ballots on accessible voting devices, which state and federal law requires must be available at every polling place for voters with disabilities. Before that, voters had no way to cast a valid ballot if they showed up at the wrong polling location.

Weeks before the 2024 election, Fontes, a Democrat, sued Pinal County, a bright-red jurisdiction sandwiched between Phoenix and Tucson, for failing to comply with the new policy. A Pinal County Superior Court judge ruled that the county was violating state law by not following the rule, but declined to force it to comply in that election. Later, the Arizona Supreme Court similarly ruled that it was far too close to the election to compel the county to change course. Since then, the two sides have continued to fight the issue in court.

In Friday’s decision, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney ruled that the policy usurped counties’ authority and threatened to disenfranchise disabled voters, who may be forced to wait in line to use an accessible machine. He noted it would place administrative burdens on local election officials, requiring them to “substantially rework” poll workers’ training and load all of the county’s ballot styles onto its accessible voting devices. He also found that precinct-based voting was not a form of disenfranchisement.




https://www.votebeat.org/arizona/2026/05/02/pinal-county-adrian-fontes-ballots-precinct-voting-court-ruling/