Ballot Math / Local races

Candidate races: Justice precinct and EVIT

The bottom of the ballot: a former Speaker runs for justice of the peace

November 3, 2026 general election, San Marcos justice precinct (Chandler and Sun Lakes) and EVIT District 3. These are the races voters usually skip for lack of information. One of them is the only contested justice of the peace race in Maricopa County. One of them has almost no public information at all, which is itself information.

Justice of the Peace, San Marcos District

What this office does: the justice court is the court most residents will ever actually meet: traffic cases, orders of protection, landlord-tenant and eviction cases, small claims and civil suits up to $10,000, and preliminary hearings in felony cases. Arizona does not require a justice of the peace to be an attorney, and neither candidate in this race is one. This is the only contested JP race in Maricopa County in 2026, and the first contested race for this seat since 2010.

Jennifer Jermaine (Democrat, incumbent)

Elected to this seat in 2022, sworn in January 3, 2023, succeeding former Chandler Mayor Jay Tibshraeny. She also serves as the Associate Presiding Justice of the Peace for the Maricopa County Justice Courts. Before the bench: two terms in the Arizona House (LD18, 2019 to 2023, Tempe, Mesa, Chandler, Ahwatukee), on the Government, Elections Reform, and Military and Veterans Affairs committees. BA in international business (San Diego State), MPA (ASU), years in the nonprofit sector helping people start small businesses. Lives in Chandler. She is a first-generation descendant of the White Earth Nation.

  • Signature record: as a legislator she founded and chaired Arizona's Study Committee on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, created by her bill HB 2570 (2019), which passed unanimously and was signed by Gov. Ducey; a follow-on bill on missing and murdered indigenous peoples advanced the next session. Other work included school health funding and dental care for pregnant women bills.
  • Stated approach (her campaign site): "a fair and balanced approach," listening "to all sides," researching existing laws and regulations before deciding, and "fair access to justice."
  • Endorsements found: LD13 Democrats, per The Decent Ballot.
  • Controversies: none found. No ethics items, controversies, or notable rulings surfaced in any coverage we searched. For an incumbent judge, a blank controversies section is a finding, and we report it as one.

Javan Daniel "J.D." Mesnard (Republican)

One of the most experienced politicians on this entire ballot, running for its smallest court. Legislative intern while studying music composition at ASU, then eight years as a Senate policy advisor, then the House 2011 to 2019 (Speaker Pro Tempore, then Speaker of the House 2017 to 2018), then the Senate from 2019 to now (LD17, then LD13 after redistricting), where he chairs the Finance Committee. Term-limited in the Senate in 2026. Two master's degrees; adjunct political science instructor for two decades; lives in Chandler with his wife, a family nurse practitioner, and their three children.

  • Signature record, largely in his own words to Arizona Agenda: the 2.5 percent flat income tax (2021), which he calls his "proudest accomplishment"; the 20 percent teacher pay raise (2018); an early law against revenge porn; and conceiving the office of lieutenant governor, which voters created in 2022. As Speaker he presided over the expulsion of Rep. Don Shooter for harassment (the first House expulsion in about 70 years, an investigation Mesnard started), the 2018 Red for Ed teacher strike, and process reforms including a bill voting timer and restrictions on strike-everything amendments.
  • Elections record: his SB 1713 (2021) would have required mail voters to add a birth date plus an ID number to their ballots. His defense of it at the time: "What is undebatable is that people have a lot of concerns about it. That, by itself, is a threat." In 2025 he proposed restructuring the Independent Redistricting Commission from five members to nine.
  • His most notable 2026 bill is unusually relevant to this job: SB 1725 would treat "excessive marijuana smoke and odor" detectable on a neighbor's property as a public and private nuisance. It passed the Senate (as amended, liability generally requires defying a court abatement order, charged as a petty offense per day); its final outcome in the House was not verified in our research, and a companion ballot referral failed on the Senate floor. His stated motive, per azcentral: a neighbor's marijuana smoke drifting into his Chandler home, and having to explain the smell to his young daughter. Critics cite the voters' intent in Prop 207 and the vagueness of "excessive." Nuisance and misdemeanor matters are precisely the kind of cases a justice court hears, which makes this the rare legislative vote that doubles as a preview of a judicial philosophy.
  • Why JP, in his account: his Senate term is ending; he wanted to keep serving closer to home ("looking for how else can I serve my community and use the skills and talents I feel I have"), and he previously helped write laws affecting justice courts. He declined to endorse in the race to succeed him in the Senate because, he said, judicial candidates should not endorse.
  • Endorsements found: the Arizona Multihousing Association, the landlords' association, noted by The Decent Ballot as a pointed endorsement for the judge of a court that hears evictions.
  • Controversies: no ethics findings or scandals involving Mesnard were found. An October 2026 Arizona Mirror story reported a progressive group's challenge to donations from a PAC tied to a charter school CEO; Mesnard appears on the list of candidates who received that PAC's contributions, and nothing in the coverage alleged wrongdoing by him personally.

Money, both JP candidates: JP candidates file with Maricopa County Elections, and no fundraising or spending totals for either campaign were found in the sources searched. We print none rather than guess.

Constable, San Marcos District

Nathan Wallace (Republican, incumbent) is unopposed. The constable is the justice court's enforcement arm, serving process and executing court orders including eviction writs. Wallace has been the San Marcos constable since at least 2021 (a 2023 judges' association conference biography says since 2019) and also serves as the presiding constable for the Maricopa County justice courts. The standard constable salary was $75,000 in 2023. No notable coverage or controversies were found, and this entry stays short because the public record is short, not because the office is unimportant: if you are ever served or evicted in Chandler, this is the office at your door.

EVIT Governing Board, District 3: the write-in race

What EVIT is: the East Valley Institute of Technology is a public career and technical education district headquartered in Mesa, serving high school juniors and seniors from a dozen member districts (about 26,000 students in satellite programs at their own high schools, plus several thousand bused to two central Mesa campuses) and tuition-paying adults, across 50-plus certification programs. Its nine-member elected board decides budgets, how state career-ed money is split between the central campuses and the satellite programs, agreements with member districts, and the superintendent.

The race that is not on your ballot, literally: no candidate filed for the printed ballot in District 3 by the deadline, so no names appear. The seat will be filled entirely by write-in votes, and only two people registered as official write-ins: Robert Covington, the incumbent (per Ballotpedia), and Jill Osborne. Only votes for registered write-ins are counted. District 3 is the only EVIT seat this year with two candidates competing; the other districts were unopposed, canceled, or drew a single write-in.

The board's live fight, which is the context for any vote here: nine of EVIT's twelve member districts, including Chandler Unified, sued EVIT in fall 2025, claiming it withheld satellite-program funds without adequately explaining why, after EVIT proposed reducing the share of state funding passed through to district-run programs and sought more oversight of them. A Superior Court judge ruled in 2026 that EVIT's board keeps legal authority over program content and quality and that the funds are restricted to career education, but that without an agreement, already-distributed funds and district programs are not subject to EVIT oversight. The districts stopped busing students to the Mesa campuses, declined EVIT's offer to cover the full estimated $4 million transportation cost, reached a partial agreement, and by June 2026 were headed back to court. A 2024 Auditor General's report had also criticized EVIT's lax oversight. Whoever wins this seat walks into that lawsuit.

  • Robert Covington (incumbent, write-in): beyond his incumbency and his write-in filing, we could not verify a biography, a tenure start, an occupation, or a board record from any source, including EVIT's own board pages as indexed in search. That absence is reported, not filled.
  • Jill Osborne (write-in): the only verifiable public trace found is the LD9 Democrats' 2026 voter guide recommending her. No campaign site, biography, coverage, or stated reason for running was located. (A school trustee of the same name in Alberta, Canada is a different person.)

This is the honest limit of what a voter can know about this race from public sources in October 2026, and it is worth sitting with: a seat on a board currently being sued by nine of its own member districts will be decided by whichever registered write-in name a small number of voters happen to write down. If you care about career and technical education in the East Valley, the write-in line is where this election actually happens.

Verification notes

  • Mesnard's career dates follow the Arizona State Library legislative service record (House through 2018, Senate from 2019). Secondary summaries differ by a year in places.
  • SB 1725's passage through the Senate is documented; its final disposition in the House was not verified, so this page does not call it law or dead.
  • Wallace's tenure start is hedged in place because a conference biography (2019) and county salary records (2021) differ.
  • For EVIT District 3, the write-in-only status and both filings are confirmed by the Maricopa County School Superintendent's official candidate list dated August 25, 2026. Everything beyond that about the two candidates is, as stated, not publicly documented.

How to vote without getting your ballot rejected

  • Mail it by Tuesday, October 27, 2026. After that day, do not mail it: use a drop box or a vote center.
  • It must be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Postmarks do not count.
  • Sign and date the affidavit envelope, and write a current phone number on it. If your signature is questioned, the county will try to reach you.
  • Leaving any item blank is allowed and does not affect the rest of your ballot.
  • For the EVIT race: there are no printed names. You must write in a name and fill the oval; only registered write-in candidates (Covington, Osborne) can receive countable votes.

Sources

Ballot Math: analysis only, no endorsements. Same template at the bottom of the ballot as at the top: record, priorities, controversies, and honest gaps. Back to Ballot Math home.