← Election Series · Down-ballot coverage · Arizona
Our call — see the breakdown
How we research: the LiberalMind standard — every district gets the same pass: official rosters first, filings second, statements and coverage third — and where the public record runs dry we print the gap instead of filling it. Race roster: Pinal County School Office "2026 Election Candidate Filing Status" panel (official), read October 25, 2026; seat history from the Pinal County School Office governing-board listing — grade: official.
The race
There is no Toltec Elementary School District governing-board election on November 3, 2026. Toltec ESD No. 22 is a five-member board, and four of its seats were in cycle this year: per the county school office's board listing, the terms expiring December 31, 2026 were held by Ernest Lopez, Lewis Cortright, Anthony Levatino and Mark Lindgren (David Richter serves to 2028). Under Arizona's school-election rules, when the filed candidates do not exceed the seats, the election is cancelled and the filers are deemed elected; the Pinal County School Office's candidate filing-status panel marks this district's election "CXL ELECTION" — cancelled. Consistently, no Toltec ESD board race appears on the official Citizens Clean Elections Commission Pinal County general-election candidate list.
Who takes the seats
The filing panel lists four filers — three for four-year terms and one for a two-year term:
- Andrew Rodriguez — filed (four-year); deemed elected. A new member.
- Ernesto Lopez — filed (four-year); deemed elected. (The county board listing renders the expiring holder's first name "Ernest"; the filing panel prints "Ernesto." The panel's spelling governs the filing record, and we note the variant rather than silently choosing one.)
- Mark Lindgren — filed (four-year); deemed elected. An expiring-seat holder returning.
- Steve Cortright — filed for the two-year term as a write-in (the panel marks the candidacy "WRITE-IN"); deemed elected on the panel's record.
Two expiring-seat holders do not appear as filers on the panel: Anthony Levatino and Lewis Cortright. Their seats turn over through the filings above — the panel states who filed; it does not editorialize about who did not, and neither do we.
Record gaps
This roster was unpublished in every reachable source until October 25, 2026: the county's board listing named seats and expiring holders only, and the school office's filing-status panel is script-driven and returns no data to a text fetch. One caution from the search trail is worth printing for future readers: a Pinal cancellation resolution naming Toltec candidates (Timothy Cason, Bill Doherty, Lewis Cortright, James Gray) circulates in search results but dates from roughly 2020 — it is not 2026 data and was not used for anything here beyond confirming Lewis Cortright's incumbency. The names above come from a live-browser reading of the official panel on October 25, 2026. No campaign statements exist for any filer; a cancelled election generates none.
OUR CALL
No call — there is no election to call. Toltec ESD's governing-board election was cancelled; the four filers named above take their seats as deemed elected under Arizona law, including one write-in filer for the two-year term. We record the outcome; there is no vote to advise on.
This article is part of our complete Election 2026 coverage — every race, researched the same way. Read the full breakdown 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
- Pinal County School Office, "2026 Election Candidate Filing Status" panel (Toltec ESD No. 22: "CXL ELECTION"; Rodriguez, Ernesto Lopez and Lindgren, four-year; Steve Cortright, two-year write-in) — official. https://www.pinalcso.org/superintendent-s-office/superintendent-s-office-governing-board-elections
- Pinal County School Office, Governing Board Member Listing 2026/2027 (expiring seats: Lopez, Lewis Cortright, Levatino, Lindgren; Richter to 2028). https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1773770020/pinalgov/qk7adurwmsx0efn2atnb/GOVERNING_BOARD_MEMBERS_2026-2027_1.pdf
- Citizens Clean Elections Commission, Pinal County candidates, 2026 general election (official — Toltec ESD board race absent, consistent with cancellation). https://storageccec.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/public/docs/1507-County-Candidates-for-Clean-Elections-2026-GEN.pdf
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.