DHS promised no ICE at polls, but ‘I’m not relieved at all’

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian
Fontes still has lingering questions and concerns after a call with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday in which the agency
invited election officials from across the country to discuss the
upcoming midterm elections. 

The meeting included election
officials from across the country, who were joined by representatives
from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice,
U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Election Assistance Commission.
The Arizona Mirror reviewed a copy of the email sent to election
officials. 

The invitation for the meeting was sent a week before DHS Secretary Kristi Noem visited Arizona and after President Donald Trump had made comments calling for Republicans to nationalize elections. 

In a phone interview with the Mirror
after the call, Fontes said that DHS officials were adamant that U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would not be at polling
locations. 

“The bright line was that the
Department of Homeland Security was very clear that any suggestion that
ICE would be present at polling places was not true,” Fontes said

Still, the Democratic secretary of state said he wasn’t totally reassured. 

“I’m not relieved at all, because the
guarantee that there would be no ICE at polling places came from
Heather Honey, so I’m not sure we can depend on that,” Fontes said.

Honey is an election denier who was appointed to a senior role in DHS overseeing the nation’s election infrastructure. Her mentor is Cleta Mitchell, who has been involved in a number of failed court cases attempting to overturn Trump’s election losses.   

The White House has said it has no “formal plans” for ICE at polling locations this year, but the Trump administration notably has not ruled out doing so.

“I want them to walk the talk,” Fontes said. “I want my serious questions that have been lingering for almost a year answered.”

Fontes, along with secretaries of state in nine other states have asked
DOJ and DHS for clarity on how voter data has been used. The Justice
Department initially said the data would be used to evaluate state
compliance with federal voter laws but later acknowledged that it shared the data with DHS to search for noncitizens on voter rolls. 

Arizona is one of more than 20 states that the Trump administration is suing for fully unredacted voter roll data. Fontes has continued to push back against it citing the Privacy Act of 1974 which was also cited in court cases challenging the Department of Government Efficiency. The Privacy Act of 1974 came out of the Watergate and COINTELPRO scandals.  

Fontes also wrote to Trump a year ago after federal cybersecurity officials that work with Arizona election officials were put on administrative leave.

He said that when DHS was directly
asked if the U.S. Constitution says that states are in charge of their
elections, the agency did not respond. 

“The federal government is positioning themselves in an unconstitutional way, and that bothers me,” Fontes said. 

Despite the concerns, Fontes said
that, come November, Arizonans should know that local election officials
will be ready and prepared to run an efficient election. 

“Arizonans should know that Arizona
is going to run a good election, despite attempts by the federal
government to take elections over,” Fontes said, adding that all the
counties have been working together. “As long as I’m the secretary of
state, we are going to work together.”

Despite claims by Trump and his allies, there has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud or malfeasance in the elections.