After overseeing some of the most closely watched elections in the nation, former Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates now gets to watch them from the outside.

Gates left the Board of Supervisors in 2024 and has since joined Arizona State University, where he teaches and helps lead the Mechanics of Democracy Lab (MODL), a research initiative focused on training election officials, restoring public trust in voting and studying how to improve the nation’s elections.

An Arizona native, Gates became interested in politics in high school, where he organized a Young Republicans group. He went on to serve as an election integrity lawyer during the 2002 and 2004 election cycles for the GOP and later directed the party’s election integrity program in 2006 and 2008.

He was elected in 2009 to serve on the Phoenix City Council. Seven years later, he returned to voting issues, this time after winning a seat on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, where he oversaw a number of turbulent elections.

He now works with ASU’s MODL to bring together election officials, researchers and leaders from across the political spectrum to study election administration, emerging technology and artificial intelligence.

“We’re here to serve as a resource, and then we’re even doing some work with helping elections officials to prepare, for example, a knock on the door from the feds and what that looks like, just as we have a changing election environment and how the federal government is kind of changing its posture,” he said.

Gates recently spoke to the Arizona Capitol Times about his career and his thoughts on election integrity. Questions and answers have been edited for style and clarity. 

What’s it like watching Arizona elections from the outside instead of being responsible for them?

It does feel a little different. It’s less of the butterflies in the stomach, but the great thing is we really have excellent elections officials across the state. I knew that we were in good hands. 

Also serving as a resource because a lot of people do watch Arizona and the way that we run elections. An example of this is some folks that I respect a lot in California have been reaching out because they’re trying to kind of speed up some of their election results (and) being able to share both some of the lessons that we learned when I was in office.

What do you think people misunderstood most about elections in Maricopa County during the 2020, 2022 and 2024 cycles?

I think what people most misunderstand is the amount of checks and balances in the system, the various audits that are available. There are Republicans and Democrats involved throughout the process. 

So to the extent that people are concerned about elections being rigged, their bipartisan teams work at the vote centers, at the ballot processing center, and then you have poll observers from the Republican and Democratic parties. I think that really helps instill confidence in the way that elections are run here in Arizona, because it’s not that way everywhere. 

Has being outside of government changed your perspective on election administration? 

I think for me, what’s been great is my experience. I think it’s been great to have this national reach and to be able to learn about it in detail. There’s a lot of states like Wisconsin and Michigan where the cities are very actively involved in the elections and what that does, I think, is not a flaw in the system. I think it’s a strength of the system. Federalism in action.  

I think it comes in stark contrast to both the Republicans and the Democrats in the Biden years, who wanted the federal government to get more involved in elections, and now also under President Trump, winning the Oval Office in particular, getting more involved in elections. 

Both of those approaches are not in our best interest, in my opinion, and we need to remind people the Constitution is set up so that the states run elections. Certainly, Congress is mentioned, but getting back to that and just seeing all these great, incredibly qualified and hardworking elections officials all around the country, and if people had the opportunity to see all of them, I think it would bolster confidence in our system.

Is public trust in elections improving, or are we still facing many of the same challenges?

I think the great work that our elections officials have done should continue to bolster confidence in elections. We did a survey at the end of 2025 that indicated, unfortunately, there’s still a lack of trust among many Republicans. There’s a stark difference between how Republicans view elections — not the results, but the actual administration. They have less trust in elections than both Democrats and Independents. That’s discouraging. 

But it’s good to know the reality of where we’re at and the hard work that needs to be done, and so that’s why our approach at the Mechanics of Democracy Laboratory has been what we call “partisan inclusive.” 

We’re not nonpartisan. Most people who work in elections are a member of one party or another. Some people are Independents, but we have an open door to all: to Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Greens, No Labels, Libertarians — you name it. We want all of those people to feel like this is a place where we will listen to their concerns. We feel like that’s the only way to do it in a country like ours, where for the most part it is partisan elected officials who are running these elections departments, as opposed to most of the world where it’s actually there are these like non truly nonpartisan independent elections commissions.

What are you watching most closely this election cycle? Any trends you’ve noticed? 

(The new voter identification law where people can choose to turn in their early ballot, have their ID checked and then get it stamped with “Identification Verified”) That is one thing I’m interested in here: whether people are utilizing that opportunity for the general election. I’m also interested in what we’re hearing out of the federal government, what sort of messages they’re passing on to the local level. Are they going to be supportive and helpful partners? That’s certainly my hope. 

I think we had disappointing participation levels in the primary. Maricopa County has had very strong voter participation in the general elections, both the last two presidential elections, over 80%, which is pretty remarkable. I’ll be really interested to see that number as well. 

I’m definitely paying close attention to Maricopa County, and great news with the settlement of the lawsuit between the Board of Supervisors and the Recorder. I’ll continue to look very closely at that. 

Speaking of the recent public dispute between the Board of Supervisors and the county recorder, what lessons should election officials take from that?

It’s a unique situation we have here in Arizona, where we have the division of responsibilities under the statutes. Getting to know those other elected officials and building a relationship as early as possible, a trust level. If you can do that, hopefully that helps you to work through these challenges, because we know there are already people who feel uncomfortable with elections, who’ve maybe lost their faith to some extent. I think to see elected officials feuding with one another, that’s hard. That’s why I’m thrilled they were able to work this out.

Has election administration become too political, or is this simply the new reality?

It has, which is very unfortunate. If you go back in time, the first time election administration in our lifetimes was the issue was Bush versus Gore in 2000. Frankly, it led to me doing the work that I did for the Republican Party. But then it sort of calmed down, and ever since 2016, which is when we had the long lines in the presidential primary and that actually led to (former Maricopa County Recorder) Helen Purcell and Michele Reagan, Secretary of State, being voted out. Since then, this has become very political, and I think that’s really problematic for our democracy. 

An election official is like a referee, and it’s great people are paying more attention to elections, but there’s so much misinformation that’s being pumped in there. I think that is really starting to turbocharge this: the attacks on elections officials, and then when that turns into death threats and harassment, it’s driving people out of the profession. I think it is a shame that it has become such a difficult job in the public eye, where it never was before.

We need more people to help run our elections, and I’m thrilled by the young people here who want to go into it as a profession. There’s so much attention that’s been put on elections administration since 2020 in particular; students now know that’s a job. They know it’s a noble profession. It may not be the highest-paying profession, but for people who are interested in public service, particularly any kind of non-political form of public service, elections is really kind of an exciting field to go into.