The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
If you've had a chance to drop by the Arizona Legislature in recent years, you might have seen Alex Kolodin (R-Scottsdale, Arizona House member and current GOP nominee for Arizona Secretary of State) pontificating about elections. It should terrify every voter.
This guy has some strange ways of thinking. Seems manic to me to be still fighting about the 2020 "stolen" election when not a single piece of evidence exists to prove his conspiracies. Critics have flagged his claims as odd, extreme, or disqualifying for the office he's seeking.
On the 2020 election/election integrity
At a May candidate forum, when asked whether the 2020 election was stolen, he said: "When people say was it stolen? I say it was stolen fair and square." — a line widely mocked since it seems to concede Trump lost while still using "stolen" language.
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He helped file the 2020 "Kraken lawsuit" with Sidney Powell, which alleged, without evidence, that the election was stolen, foreign interference was involved, voting machines were hacked, and hundreds of thousands of noncitizens voted.
Kolodin, who is an attorney, represented Arizona's "fake electors" who tried to set aside the state's certified 2020 results, and after that case was dismissed, the State Bar of Arizona admonished, suspended him, and required him to take legal ethics classes for filing multiple lawsuits lacking merit. He was required to pay the bar for its investigation.
He's now seeking the office that would run Arizona's elections while still questioning their legitimacy. He has openly acknowledged the national power he is seeking, calling the Arizona Secretary of State's Office "probably the most important elections official in the country."
On guns and weapons
He sponsored a resolution that strikes out the entire section of Arizona law that prohibits deadly weapons including machine guns, silencers, sawed-off shotguns, and pipe bombs, arguing enforcement of federal weapons bans shouldn't fall on state law enforcement. He told the Arizona Mirror, "What this bill says is, if the feds want to infringe on our Second Amendment rights, they can darn well pay for doing that themselves, and we're not going to have Arizona law enforcement do it."
Other odd/notable moments
He was named the Phoenix New Times' "Best Political Jester of 2025."
Kolodin said county prosecutors "killed" murdered Gilbert teen Preston Lord and was the sole vote against a bill criminalizing stolen valor.
On the campaign trail, Kolodin sparred publicly with rival Gina Swoboda, calling her "definitely not someone stable enough to be our chief elections officer" and dismissing her account of events as "fanciful historical revisionism."
A former Republican county recorder, Stephen Richer, warned that "it could undermine the process if your chief spokesperson is peddling some of the nonsense that Alex has peddled over the last now-almost six years."
Look, Mr. Kolodin is probably a good guy and much loved by his friends and family. But can you imagine the chaos this odd fella, a human wrecking ball, would sow if elected? Screwing around with our election infrastructure late at night? Let the fox into the hen house to perpetuate baseless claims of election fraud? No thanks. We need mature, fair-minded, and professional leadership in our next Secretary of State.
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A fifth-generation southern Arizonan and product of Tucson High School and the University of Arizona, Jeff has been a print and digital journalist for decades including political, government, and business reporting for the Arizona Daily Star and other publications. He's also a Pima County poll worker.
