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Endorses Reagan

The race

The McDowell Mountain Precinct, in Scottsdale, elects a justice of the peace this cycle. A justice of the peace presides over the precinct's justice court — traffic and misdemeanor cases, civil claims up to $10,000, evictions, and orders of protection. Arizona does not require a justice of the peace to be an attorney, and the office carries a four-year term. This race is on the November 3, 2026 general-election ballot as a vote, not a cancelled election: Arizona's cancellation statute, A.R.S. § 16-410, by its terms covers only elections held under Title 15, Title 48, or § 16-822, and Ballotpedia's general-election tables list this race on the general ballot with a single candidate. The sole general-election candidate is Michele Reagan (Republican), the incumbent — Ballotpedia's general-election table marks her with an (i).

Michele Reagan (Republican, incumbent) has served in all three branches of Arizona state government. Per her official Maricopa County Justice Courts biography: she was appointed justice of the peace for this precinct in September 2019 — succeeding her father, Judge Michael Reagan, who held the seat for 15 years, and she still wears his robe on the bench. Before the bench she was elected to the Arizona House in 2002 (eight years), then the State Senate, where she chaired the Economic Development and Senate Elections committees, and in 2014 she was elected Arizona's 20th Secretary of State (2015–2019). On the bench she chairs the Justice Courts' Legislative Committee and runs the Northeast division of the Justice Courts' Veterans Treatment Court. She previously owned a Fastsigns business and was named an NFIB Small Business Guardian. The other column, documented: a state audit reported in January 2025 found that elections officials knew of a citizenship-tracking glitch in the motor-vehicle/voter-registration data as early as 2016, while Reagan was secretary of state, and that neither she nor the county recorder alerted MVD officials or requested interface changes at the time. That is a real administrative lapse in an elections office she led, and we print it as such.

OUR CALL

Our call: endorse Michele Reagan (Republican). The affirmative case is office-specific and verified from the court's own biography: seven years on this bench, the Veterans Treatment Court assignment, and a career spent writing and administering the election and court laws this precinct operates under — including as the state's chief elections officer. The 2016 audit finding is weighed openly above; it concerns a data-interface decision in a prior office, it was documented rather than hidden, and it does not displace a seven-year judicial record in the seat actually being filled. In an uncontested race we endorse only on a record this substantial, and hers is.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website.

Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same.

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Election result — November 4, 2026

Result pending. No verified call (Associated Press or official) as of November 4, 2026. This page will be updated when the race is called or certified. The original article above is unchanged.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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