Highlights

The Arizona Attorney General's Office has opened a criminal investigation into three statewide candidates accused of using fraudulent $5 qualifying donations and voters' personal information to collect more than $4.7 million in public campaign funds, Attorney General Kris Mayes' spokesman Richie Taylor confirmed to the Arizona Mirror.

The three candidates under investigation are Green Party gubernatorial candidate Risa Lombardo, Green Party secretary of state candidate Duwayne Collier, and Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Neely. Lombardo could be ordered to repay up to $2.8 million, Collier might have to return $739,000, and Neely could be on the hook for $1.1 million, according to letters the Clean Elections Commission's executive director, Tom Collins, sent to the candidates Aug. 25.

At least six Arizona voters told the Mirror that their names, addresses, and what appeared to be their signatures were submitted on $5 contribution forms to all three candidates without their knowledge or consent. Those small-dollar contributions are the mechanism candidates use to unlock larger sums of public financing under the state's Clean Elections system, established by voters in 1998. Gubernatorial candidates must collect 4,000 such donations to qualify; secretary of state candidates must collect 2,500.

The Mirror and the Clean Elections Commission separately found that the three candidates reported collecting qualifying contributions from nearly 4,000 of the same voters, with more than 2,600 listed as giving to all three. The same four people are recorded as collecting the majority of $5 contributions for both Neely and Collier. Lombardo was listed as collecting all of her own qualifying contributions, though her attorney indicated at the Aug. 27 Clean Elections Commission meeting that she had falsely signed more than 4,000 forms because she mistakenly believed she was required to sign all of them.

Neely told the Mirror he knew nothing about any false donations and that people who recruited him to run had collected the contributions on his behalf. He declined to identify those individuals.

Tim La Sota, a veteran Republican election attorney representing Lombardo and Collier, dismissed the investigations at the Aug. 27 meeting. "It's clear he's gotten all hopped up on this conspiracy theory, and it's caused him to basically ignore reality and try to take everyday things and turn them into something nefarious, which they're not," La Sota said of Collins.

The Arizona Green Party has disavowed Lombardo and Collier, accusing both of having extensive ties to the Arizona Republican Party and of attempting to pull progressive votes from Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs to benefit her GOP opponent, Andy Biggs.

What charges could the candidates face?

If the Attorney General's Office finds evidence of fraud, it could criminally charge the candidates, their campaign treasurers, and anyone who signed forms attesting under penalty of perjury that they collected the contributions. Forged signatures on the $5 contribution forms could support class four felony charges. Knowingly permitting a person's name to be used to effect a contribution in the name of another person could add class six felony counts, along with potential misdemeanor charges for campaign finance reporting violations under the Clean Elections Act.

The Clean Elections Commission voted unanimously at its Aug. 27 meeting to order Collins to complete his investigation and issue a repayment recommendation no sooner than Sept. 24 and no later than Oct. 29.

Sources

Every factual claim in this article traces to one of the sources below. See how we work for the editorial process.

  1. azmirror.com retrieved 01/09/2026 23:22

Authored by The Scottsdale Signal. Drafted by AI from primary-source material under our beat-specific editorial guides; reviewed by humans before publish under our five-gate process. Sources retrieved at 01/09/2026 23:22. Every claim traces to a source.