Highlights

The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission voted unanimously Thursday to order its executive director to complete fraud investigations into three statewide candidates, Green Party gubernatorial candidate Risa Lombardo, Green Party secretary of state candidate Duwayne Collier, and Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Neely, who together collected $4.7 million in public campaign funds.

The four-person commission authorized Executive Director Tom Collins to subpoena the candidates' records, bank statements, and witnesses, and to compel testimony. Collins must deliver a recommendation on whether any of the $4.7 million should be repaid, and in what amount, by Sept. 24 at the earliest and Oct. 29 at the latest.

The vote came two days after the Arizona Mirror published a report in which six Arizonans said their names had been falsely used on $5 qualifying contributions filed by the campaigns. Those small-dollar donations are required for candidates to unlock larger sums of public financing. The Mirror contacted more than 50 voters listed as giving to all three campaigns and found none who confirmed the contributions were legitimate. Christopher Scott of Peoria told the Mirror he had not made a single contribution, let alone three.

Collins's investigation and the Mirror's review of campaign finance records found that the three campaigns reported collecting qualifying contributions from nearly 4,000 of the same voters, with more than 2,600 listed as giving to all of them. Those duplicated contributions account for nearly 75% of the qualifying donations reported by the trio. For the hundreds of contributors the Mirror reviewed, the vast majority had never given to any other candidate.

Collins also presented financial evidence that the campaigns' spending patterns were inconsistent with the scale of their reported fundraising. Lombardo's campaign account held a balance of $61 at the start of May, Collier's held $25, and Neely's held $177. Despite reporting that they had collected thousands of $5 contributions over several months, from November 2025 through April 2026, all three deposited the money in lump sums in May. Lombardo and Collier made their deposits on the same day they applied for public funding; Neely made his about a week before applying. Collins noted that neither Collier nor Neely reported paying any people or businesses before receiving public funds, and Lombardo's campaign reported no such payments either, even though she had reportedly already collected thousands of ballot signatures and more than 4,000 small contributions. Collins told the commission the campaigns' financial activity did not reflect an operation of that scale.

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. During the meeting, her attorney indicated she had signed more than 4,000 contribution forms because she mistakenly believed she was required to sign all of them.

Tim La Sota, a veteran Republican election attorney representing Lombardo and Collier, told the commission before it voted that the investigations amounted to conspiracy theories. "The campaigns should not have been besmirched this way, based on what is really just a bunch of black helicopter-type conspiracy theories," La Sota said. He argued that any campaign finance reporting issues could be corrected through amended filings and called the evidence in Collins's letters a collection of inferences and assumptions. He said his clients would not return the money.

La Sota also noted that Secretary of State Adrian Fontes had already certified the candidates as qualifying for public funds, and argued that any objection to the $5 contributions should have been raised months earlier. Collins said in a statement to the Mirror that he does not believe that certification resolves the broader issues his investigation has uncovered. The majority of the contribution slips went to Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap for review.

Neely told the commissioners he had no knowledge of the allegations before the Mirror's article was published, even though his comments to the Mirror, made the day before publication, appeared in that article. He said the people who recruited him to run had collected the donations on his behalf, but declined to identify them. Neely said he had not engaged in fraud and expected to be exonerated.

The Arizona Green Party has accused Lombardo and Collier of being candidates designed to draw votes away from Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and toward Republican Andy Biggs. Lombardo faces potential repayment of up to $2.8 million; Collier faces more than $739,000; Neely, who lost his primary to Biggs and received public funding only for that race, faces more than $1.1 million.

Collins's repayment recommendation is due no later than Oct. 29.

Sources

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  1. azmirror.com retrieved 27/08/2026 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 27/08/2026 23:22. Every claim traces to a source.