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Endorses Gremmel

The race

The constable is the executive enforcement officer of the justice court: a peace officer who serves legal process — summonses, subpoenas, eviction writs, warrants, and orders of protection — for the precinct. District 6 is the Apache Junction precinct. The term is four years.

This is a contested general-election race, and its roster is verified from the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission's official 2026 general-election candidate list for Pinal County: Ted Gremmel (Republican, incumbent) and Susan Bates (Democratic). One record correction belongs here: our Pinal correction article, reading the county's primary nomination-petitions file, reported Bates as a justice of the peace candidate and Gremmel as unopposed. The official general-election list places Bates in this constable race — which is also where her own party's general slate, Arizona List, and GoodParty put her — and the general-election list governs the general-election roster.

The candidates

Ted Gremmel (Republican, incumbent) has been a public servant for more than 30 years, per his official county biography. He joined the United States Navy in 1987 and served in Operations Team Spirit, Cobra Gold, and Desert Shield. Back in Arizona, he began with Pinal County Adult Probation in 1994 as a surveillance officer supervising convicted felons on intensive probation, and served as the department's lead firearms instructor — receiving the Arizona Supreme Court's Firearms Instructor of the Year Award in 2006. After retiring from probation in 2013, he managed the Diversion Program for the Pinal County Attorney's Office and later served as impound hearing officer for the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, before his election as constable (current term 2023–2026). His stated commitment as constable: "serving and protecting our community with integrity, respect, and professionalism." One relationship prints as plain fact: his wife, Kelly Gremmel, is the District 6 justice of the peace — the judge of the court he enforces for — and is herself on this ballot unopposed (see our District 6 JP article). Credits: Navy service, two decades of probation supervision of convicted felons, a state firearms-instructor award, and an incumbent constable's term. Dirt: no documented controversy, discipline, or scandal surfaced in this pass's searches; the household pairing of constable and judge in one precinct is a fact for voters to weigh, not a documented violation.

Susan Bates (Democratic) is the Democratic nominee. Beyond the filing and the nomination, this pass located no campaign site, no biography, no questionnaire or Vote411 entry, and no news coverage of Bates or her candidacy — the listings that name her (the Pinal Democrats' general slate, Arizona List, GoodParty) carry no record with them. No Manchin-style break record is documented or claimed. Under our standards her record is unproven: not a demerit, and not a basis to outrank a documented incumbent file.

Pros and cons

Record gaps

Documented on the article's face: we worked the Clean Elections Commission's official general candidate list (the roster, verified), the county's nomination-petitions file, the county's official staff-directory biography for Constable Gremmel, the Arizona Constables Association's Pinal page, GoodParty's office listing (confirming the 2023–2026 term), the Pinal Democrats' general slate and Arizona List's archive (Bates's listings), and news searches for both names. The incumbent's record came back full; the challenger's came back as a nomination and listings only. That gap is reported, not filled in.

OUR CALL

Our call: endorse Ted Gremmel (Republican).

A Republican Navy veteran and career probation and enforcement officer, decorated as a firearms instructor, now the incumbent constable — against a challenger with no locatable record and no documented break from the party our coverage opposes as a class. The pairing with his wife's judgeship is disclosed on this page's face; it is a fact voters can weigh, not a documented impropriety, and it does not outweigh a thirty-year verified record.

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.

--- Sources

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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