>>24899665
>Read more here:
America First Legal Files Lawsuit Against Arizona Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes, Challenging Misleading Ballot Language for Critical Voter ID Proposal
Washington, D.C. — August 3, 2026
Election Integrity
America First Legal (AFL) has filed an important election integrity lawsuit in the Superior Court of Arizona, Maricopa County. The lawsuit challenges the official ballot language prepared by Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) for Proposition 144, an election integrity constitutional amendment referred to voters by the Arizona Legislature. AFL’s complaint asks the court to require the Secretary to prepare lawful, neutral ballot language before early voting begins in October.
Proposition 144 is essentially the State of Arizona’s version of the SAVE America Act. It requires citizenship to vote and to register to vote, mandates voter ID for all forms of voting, prohibits foreign money from being spent to influence elections, and enshrines the right of the people and the legislature to adopt laws governing elections and clarifies the legal standard that should apply to court challenges to any such laws.
The official description of a ballot measure appears on voters’ ballots and is often the only information they read about the proposition they are voting on. Arizona law requires the Secretary of State to provide voters with a neutral, accurate, and objective description of ballot measures. AFL alleges that the Secretary’s current description of the initiative violates Arizona law by:
Omitting key provisions.
Inserting political commentary.
Making unsupported claims about the measure’s legal effect.
AFL’s complaint alleges that the Secretary’s language fails that requirement in three key ways:
1.The ballot language hides Proposition 144’s central citizenship protections.
The Secretary’s 50-word descriptive title and six-clause “yes”-vote statement omit Proposition 144’s primary purpose: ensuring that only citizens register and vote in Arizona elections. The complaint alleges that this omission is especially significant because the Secretary used only about 28 of the 50 available words in the title.
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The ballot language inserts misleading commentary.
The “yes”-vote statement describes the foreign-spending provision as “similar to prohibitions that already exist in federal law.” That language does not appear in Proposition 144 and inaccurately suggests that federal law already provides protections that the measure would establish. Rather, federal law does not prohibit foreign money from being spent to influence ballot measures, and Proposition 144 would close that loophole.
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The ballot language makes an unsupported legal prediction.
The “yes” vote statement claims Proposition 144 would “lower the legal standard for judicial review of election laws, making it harder to challenge election laws in state court.” However, Proposition 144 never says that it is lowering the standard, and Fontes’s claim that it does is a speculative legal conclusion—not a neutral explanation of the measure’s text.
The sponsor of Proposition 144 is state Representative Alex Kolodin. AFL’s complaint also alleges that Secretary Fontes has publicly opposed Proposition 144, supported a competing ballot initiative that failed to qualify for the ballot, and is a candidate against Representative Kolodin for Secretary of State in the same November 3, 2026, election in which voters will decide the measure.
“Free and fair elections start with an honest ballot,” said James Rogers, Senior Counsel at America First Legal. “Secretary Fontes had one job here: tell Arizona voters the truth about what’s on their ballot. Arizona law requires official ballot language to be impartial, accurate, and free from advocacy. Secretary Fontes’s description of Proposition 144 fails all of these requirements. AFL will fight in court to ensure that every voter in Arizona gets the truth before they cast their ballot. That is what the law demands and what democracy requires.”
Read the full complaint here.
>>24899680
>Liles-v-Fontes-Complaint
>52-page PDF
Learn more about this case here.
>>24899689
>https://aflegal.org/litigation/liles-v-fontes/
Find more about AFL’s fight for election integrity here.
>>24899694
>https://aflegal.org/priority/election-integrity/
>https://aflegal.org/press-release/america-first-legal-files-lawsuit-against-arizona-secretary-of-state-adrian-fontes-challenging-misleading-ballot-language-for-critical-voter-id-proposal/