Secretary of State Adrian Fontes acknowledged in a press release earlier this month that possible foreign actors conducted a cyber attack on the candidate portal of the secretary of state’s (AZSOS) website. Fontes downplayed the hacking, and didn’t indicate whether the hackers were successful or not.
State Senator Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), founder and chair of the Arizona Freedom Caucus, posted his concern about Fontes’ dismissive press release on X. “July 1st press release looks like a MASSIVE cover up. FBI & DHS (at least!) now involved. A private briefing was held TODAY and legislators have confirmed that a ‘foreign cyberattack on AZ’s election system occurred.’ The public is totally in the dark. Adrian Fontes is lying!”
Turning Point COO Tyler Bowyer labeled it a “[m]assive failure” by Fontes.
Fontes said in his July 1 press release, “The Secretary of State’s Office detected and successfully responded to a malicious adversary that targeted the Arizona Secretary of State’s website. These attempts were investigated, our security controls tuned for similar attack patterns, and applicable threat intelligence was shared with our cybersecurity partners. The Arizona statewide voter registration database was not targeted and is unaffected by this event.”
He implied that the attack came from a foreign actor. “Since day one, I’ve warned that foreign adversaries, particularly Iran, are actively targeting our election infrastructure and political systems,” Fontes said. “These aren’t abstract threats; they are real, persistent, and growing.”
He said the attacks caused the office to take the candidate portal offline for a few hours.
The Trump administration, as part of a broad executive order issued earlier this year on investigating election integrity, will be investigating Arizona’s election equipment. The DOJ is also asking at least nine states for their voter rolls.
