Noem unable to cite single election fraud case during secretive Arizona visit

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem near Nogales, Arizona, U.S., February 4, 2026. REUTERS/Rebecca Noble

Late this week, chatter began to circulate of an impending visit by U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to discuss “election security.” On the heels of a raid late last month in Fulton County, Georgia, it sparked rumors of a similar raid in Maricopa County to search for non-existent widespread voter fraud.

Noem’s visit ended up being far more pedestrian, even as the agency went to extreme lengths to shroud nearly everything about the trip — and its purpose — in secrecy.

Reporters hoping to attend had to RSVP to Noem’s press conference at an undisclosed location nearly a full day in advance. Early Thursday evening, journalists who were approved were told to arrive at the main Homeland Security office in downtown Phoenix so they could be shuttled to an undisclosed location 30 minutes away. A slew of brand new 2026 all-wheel drive Dodge Durango GTs, some still with the dealer window sticker in the backseat, created a convoy that drove reporters to a Homeland Security Investigations field office in north Scottsdale.

In the days preceding, sources had sent the Arizona Mirror and other media outlets screenshots of a media advisory claiming Noem would be in Phoenix to discuss “election security” with local officials. The Mirror did not receive the initial advisory and did not receive a response to questions about it from DHS until the night prior to the event.

Rumors began to spread online in right-wing circles that Noem and others were coming to Phoenix to “raid” the Maricopa County elections office, echoing long debunked claims of fraud in the 2020 and 2022 elections that have become a hallmark of President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and the basis for his administration’s push to seize control of elections in some jurisdictions.

Some went beyond speculation and declared that Noem’s agency had sprung into action in Arizona. On Friday morning, former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, whose organization helped finance the sham “audit” of the 2020 presidential election results in Arizona, tweeted that DHS had raided Maricopa County Elections “minutes ago.” That was not true and the tweet was later deleted.

Nearly an hour after the press conference was scheduled to begin, Noem stepped behind a lectern in a large conference room and spoke about the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, more commonly known as the SAVE Act, and urged Congress to pass it. She also mentioned she had met with some Arizona officials to discuss elections.

Noem was flanked by poster boards discussing voter ID requirements being pushed by the SAVE Act, however, Arizona already requires proof of citizenship in order to register to vote as well as voter ID requirements.

She called Arizona’s elections an “absolute disaster” and made the false claim that there is widespread voter fraud by illegal immigrants. But when pressed by reporters to provide examples, Noem could not provide even a single one.

“Oh, I’m sure there’s many of them,” she responded.

Every cycle, there are a handful of “voter fraud” indictments. Most are people who live here in the winter months who are registered in their home state AND here, and they cast two ballots.
Or they’re people like this Trump supporter who cast her dead mom’s ballot azmirror.com/2021/07/13/v…
[image or embed]
— Jim Small (@jimsmall.bsky.social) February 13, 2026 at 12:28 PM

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, the state’s elections chief, chided Noem for traveling to the Grand Canyon State to lecture the state’s election administrators.

“Have you ever had somebody come to your job and tell you to do a job that you’re already doing?” Fontes said in a video statement. “Well, that is what Kristi Noem just did to the State of Arizona and my office.”

And Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes blasted Noem and Trump for continuing to spread debunked election conspiracy theories.

“Arizona’s elections are safe and secure. The election deniers now staffing the Trump administration have spent the past six years lying to the American people in a deliberate effort to destroy trust in our election system,” Mayes said in a statement. “Multiple investigations, independent audits, and courts across this country have all reached the same conclusion: voter fraud is exceedingly rare and has not played a meaningful role in the outcome of an election.”

Other election advocates similarly voiced frustration at Noem’s comments about Arizona’s elections.

“Today, Secretary Noem made it abundantly clear — the Trump administration’s actions are all connected,” All Voting is Local Arizona State Director Alex Gulotta said in a statement. “Whether it is pushing legislation that would keep 21 million Americans from voting, seizing election-related materials from Fulton County, refusing to rule out ICE at polling locations, threatening to ‘nationalize’ elections, or attempting to force states to hand over their voter rolls, there is no redline Trump and his administration won’t cross to undermine Americans for their own political gain as they continue to peddle lies about our elections.”

A handful of Arizona Republicans who Noem said she spoke with about elections were in attendance: U.S. Reps. Eli Crane and Paul Gosar, state Rep. John Gillette, R-Kingman, Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap and Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels all stood in the room during the press conference. Noem mentioned and thanked them by name, along with attorney and elections conspiracy theorist Jennifer Wright, a former assistant to the then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich who led the office’s Elections Integrity Unit.

Only Crane spoke to reporters after the press conference.

“I think our elections are a joke,” Crane told reporters. When asked if he believed that there was fraud in his own election, Crane doubled down: “I think there is still fraud out there in every election we had.”

Crane said he only found out that Noem’s press conference would be about elections on Friday morning and he came out right away to attend.

The SAVE Act has passed out of the U.S. House but faces a roadblock in the U.S. Senate because the GOP majority doesn’t have enough support to get around the filibuster. Arizona’s two senators, Democrats Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly, are opposed to it.

“If the Trump Administration wants to talk election integrity, let’s talk about January 6th,” Gallego said in a statement. “Let’s talk about how the President of the United States called the Governor of Arizona to order him to hand over the election he squarely lost.”

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