Just three days after school board candidates were required to turn in signatures to qualify for the November ballot, public records requests had been filed for the nomination petitions for half of the candidates in Maricopa County.
Those requests, which are often the first step in mounting a legal challenge to a candidate's eligibility for the ballot, have taken a new shape this year, said Maricopa County School Superintendent Steve Watson. They also represent an "uptick" from previous years, said Watson, who has held office since 2016.
Public records requests for petition signatures are not always filed with the intention of mounting a legal challenge. Watson said that sometimes candidates request the signatures of their opponents to send them voter outreach postcards, for example. But the "bulk of the requests" typically come from people "who are looking to remove a candidate from the ballot," he said.
Nomination petitions were due Monday, July 8, for the 175 school district governing board seats up for election in November. Candidates needed to collect a certain number of signatures, depending on the number of registered voters living in their school district, to qualify for the ballot.
By Thursday, July 11, the Maricopa County School Superintendent's Office had received 189 public records requests for the petitions of 114 of the 228 school board candidates. Those numbers include several candidates who requested their own petitions, and many of the requests came from candidates requesting the petitions of their opponents, which Watson said was "very standard."
But this year, he said the office saw individuals and groups submit "blanket requests for just a whole category of candidate," which he called unique. Though school board races are nonpartisan, Watson said that from what he's observed, the requests seem "to go along political ideology."
Leaders from Save Our Schools Arizona, a public education advocacy group that has fought against the universal expansion of the state's school voucher program, requested the petitions of at least 59 candidates from across Maricopa County. It's a new effort for the group, according to Executive Director Beth Lewis.
Lewis said she believes it's incumbent on groups like Save Our Schools to ensure candidates gathered signatures correctly. The Maricopa County School Superintendent's Office does not independently verify signatures, so they're not verified unless a legal challenge is initiated.
She'll be checking that petition circulators were qualified — they have to be able to register to vote in Arizona, and if they're not a resident of the state, must be registered as a circulator with the Secretary of State — and that the people who signed were "actually real people."
Lewis said Save Our Schools chose to request the petitions of candidates who "might fit the profile" of being supported by conservative groups like Turning Point USA and Moms for Liberty. "Having controversial school boards with extremist agendas, it's not healthy for any of us," she said.
The vast majority of Save Our Schools' requests won't lead to litigation, Lewis said. But she said the group would "absolutely challenge" candidates who they determine collected signatures incorrectly. The deadline to file election challenges is July 22.
"We're looking for candidates with integrity to serve on our school boards," she said.
The petition reviews are also an extension of the group's work supporting school board candidates across the state. Save Our Schools was involved in collecting signatures for about 60 candidates in Maricopa County, and it's planning to make official endorsements in August. Lewis said there are some districts where she believes great school boards could be achieved if candidates could run uncontested and did not have to expend resources against a "fraudulent candidate."
Craig Beckman, a parent in the Deer Valley Unified School District who ran for school board and lost in 2022, said he's concerned with the direction some school board candidates have taken, "pushing against the LGBTQ community, trying to ban curriculum, trying to ban books."
He requested the petitions of all eight candidates for Deer Valley Unified's Governing Board and said he's prepared to do "a lot of work" reviewing the signatures, including looking for signatures from people who weren't eligible to sign and looking for individuals who signed more than the maximum of three petitions allowed. There are three seats up for grabs on the district's school board, and individuals can't sign more nomination petitions than the number of offices that will be elected.
Beckman said he's concerned about a slate of three candidates that GOP leaders in the area have endorsed. "If we can keep them off the ballot, there's less risk of them being able to bring" their ideas to the school board, he said. "Politics have no business in school boards, and our students should be supported no matter what they look like, what they believe or who they love."
Shiry Sapir, who lost the Republican primary for Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2022 and ran on a platform opposing critical race theory, mask mandates and discussions of gender and sexuality in schools, requested the petitions of several candidates around the Valley who had relatively slim margins between the number of required signatures and the number of signatures they collected. Sapir, who has also publicly endorsed a number of school board candidates for the November elections, was reached by phone and declined to comment.
A group called Paradise Valley USD Taxpayers, which has previously campaigned against bond and overrides in the district — voter-approved school district funding paid for by property taxes — requested the petitions of two Paradise Valley Unified candidates, one of whom says on her website that she's volunteered to help pass bonds and overrides in the past. The group could not be reached via the phone number listed on its public records request.
Typically, there are between six and 10 legal challenges against school board candidates per election cycle, according to Shane Wikfors, the director of government and public relations at the Maricopa County School Superintendent's Office. Some of those quickly disappear because the candidate withdraws, and judges adjudicate the remainder, he said.
According to Watson, there are typically two to three successful challenges each cycle. But he added that some candidates might voluntarily withdraw even before an official legal challenge is mounted after being threatened with litigation.
Reach the reporter at mparrish@arizonarepublic.com.
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