Democrat Adrian Fontes has won the top elections post in Arizona, defeating a Republican rival who attended the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol and who said he would not have certified Joe Biden’s win in the state.
Fontes formerly oversaw parts of the election system in Arizona’s largest county and has said Republican Mark Finchem represented a danger to democracy if he had won.
The secretary of state, working with the governor and attorney general, has broad authority to rewrite the state’s election rules and plays a role in the certification of election results.