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Endorses Gremmel

The race

District 6 is the Apache Junction Justice Court, serving Apache Junction, Gold Canyon, and Queen Valley. A justice of the peace presides over the precinct's justice court — misdemeanor and traffic cases, civil claims up to $10,000, evictions, small claims, and orders of protection. Arizona does not require a justice of the peace to be an attorney. The term is four years.

The verified November 3, 2026 roster has one name on it: Kelly Gremmel (Republican, incumbent). The source is the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission's official 2026 general-election candidate list for Pinal County, which lists Gremmel alone for Justice of the Peace, Precinct 6. One record correction belongs here: our Pinal correction article, reading the county's primary nomination-petitions file, reported Democrat Susan Bates as Gremmel's opponent. The official general-election list places Bates as the Democratic candidate for Constable, Precinct 6 — which is also where her own party's general slate, Arizona List, and GoodParty put her. The general-election list governs the general-election roster: Bates is a constable candidate (see our District 6 constable article), and Gremmel is unopposed.

The candidates

Kelly Gremmel (Republican, incumbent) is the sitting Apache Junction justice of the peace and the Associate Presiding Justice of the Peace for Pinal County. Her court's official biography records a third-generation Arizonan, educated at Northern Arizona University, who spent nearly 30 years with the City of Phoenix before taking the bench: legal assistant in the City Prosecutor's Office, supervisor of the Legal Assistant Unit, roughly five years as assistant to the City Attorney in the Civil Division, and her final four years as administrator of the Victim Services Unit. She previously served on the Apache Junction City Council and as the city's representative to the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. Her stated judicial commitment: "I love the law, especially criminal law… As the Justice of the Peace, I will treat everyone with respect and professionalism. I am committed to the fairness and the rights of all people, whether they are the victim or the accused." One relationship prints as plain fact: her husband, Ted Gremmel, is the Precinct 6 constable — the enforcement officer of her own court — and is himself on this ballot in a contested race (see our District 6 constable article). Credits: three decades inside a prosecutor's office and a city attorney's office, victim-services administration, prior elected service on the city council, and an incumbent term as the county's associate presiding JP. Dirt: no documented controversy, discipline, or scandal surfaced in this pass's news and campaign searches; the household pairing of judge and constable in one precinct is a fact voters can weigh, not a documented violation of anything.

Pros and cons

Record gaps

Documented on the article's face: we worked the Clean Elections Commission's official general candidate list (the roster), the county's nomination-petitions file (the primary filings), the county courts' staff directory (Gremmel's full biography), the county staff directory for the constable's office, the Pinal Democrats' general-candidate page, Arizona List's archive, GoodParty's Pinal listings, and news searches. The one genuine gap in this race was the Bates office assignment, resolved on the record above: the general-election list and the party's own general slate agree she is the constable candidate.

OUR CALL

Our call: endorse Kelly Gremmel (Republican).

Our uncontested-race rule requires an affirmatively aligning verified record, and Gremmel's clears it: an incumbent judge whose entire career — prosecutor's office, city attorney's office, victim services, city council, and now associate presiding justice of the peace — is the legal system's daily work. The husband-and-wife pairing with the precinct's constable is on this page's face for voters to weigh; it is not a documented failing, 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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