Alexander Kolodin. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore
Alex Kolodin is one of the two state representatives in legislative district 3, the district which covers most of Scottsdale. Him and his seatmate Joseph Chaplik have served together since 2022, and Kolodin has made waves in an unequivocally positive way by standing up for the rights of Scottsdalians in Axon’s fight to take away your rights (you can get up to date here).
Kolodin has his next step in his sights though, and now we know just what that is: Kolodin will be running for Arizona Secretary of State next year. He will be looking to unseat current Secretary Adrian Fontes.
It’s an interesting move for someone who has had what can be considered a controversial career, some of which after he was first elected to office. Kolodin cut his teeth as an attorney with a robust rolodex on the Republican side, often a go-to attorney for political issues. He entered statewide prominence in the wake of the 2020 election, when he successfully sued then-County Recorder Fontes after a message Fontes sent out saying that voters could cross out their votes if they wanted.
However a successful lawsuit has since been muddied with participation in election-related conspiracy theories. He submitted the lawsuit to attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, and was the lawyer on file for plans to elect alternate electors. Since then his participation in attempts at changing elections has only deepened, as he supported a bill to switch to the hand counting of several million ballots in Arizona elections, and unsuccessfully sued to attempt to end early voting in Arizona.
Certainly one could say that as an attorney, he was hired to do his job, regardless of what he thinks about the subject. That said, attempts to switch to hand counting, a concept that is ridiculous from a logistics and time perspective and opens up the possibility of human error, both accidental and intentional, seemed to be more an attempt to placate the right wing of the party instead of standing up for reason and best practices.
Kolodin will have a lot of tough questions to answer, as well he should. If he wants to lead our elections, people deserve to know if he truly believes what he supported, or if he was simply going along to get along.
In what appears as though it will be a year that is good for Democrats, if Republicans want to win this seat they may want to consider someone who doesn’t have as much baggage as Kolodin does on this very subject. Much like the political left’s need to insert race into every issue, election denialism is so very 2020; the more reasonable of us have thankfully left it far, far behind.