Ballot Math / School districts / Apache Junction Unified
School board race: Apache Junction Unified School District

Apache Junction Unified: two seats, four candidates, and a county line running through it

November 3, 2026 general election. Read the caveat first: Apache Junction Unified is a Pinal County district (District No. 43), and its governing board election is administered by Pinal County, not by the Maricopa County School Superintendent. The district sits at the Maricopa County line, which is why it appears in a Maricopa County voter's research. Whether any specific Maricopa County ballot style includes this race could not be verified from Maricopa sources; if it is on your ballot, this page is your starting point, and the Pinal County pamphlet is your document of record.
How this race works: two of the board's five seats are up, both for four-year terms. The expiring terms are those of Dena Kimble and Gail Ross, per the Pinal County governing board listing. Four candidates are running: Dena Kimble (incumbent), Gilbert "Gil" K. Cancio, Chelsea Connolly, and Sharon Williams. Vote for up to two; the top two win. Board service is unpaid.

What we could and could not verify

The candidate names and the two-seat count are verified from two Pinal County oriented sources, The Decent Ballot's Pinal County 2026 voter guide and GoodParty's Apache Junction school board page, which agree exactly. We did not retrieve a Pinal County Elections official candidate list in this research, and we found no usable biographies, platforms, or forum records for Cancio, Connolly, or Williams, and only Kimble's incumbency for her. Rather than pad four entries, we state the field, which is verified, and the gap, which is real.

For Apache Junction voters, the practical sources are the Pinal County school office and local coverage in the Apache Junction area press. For Maricopa County voters near the line: your ballot, not your mailing address, decides whether this race is yours. If an Apache Junction Unified board race appears on it, you are in the district's Maricopa-side precincts for this election.

Verification notes

  • This race is excluded from the Maricopa County district counts elsewhere on this site because it is Pinal administered. It is included as a page because the district touches Maricopa County and voters there asked about it.
  • School board campaign finance for this race files in Pinal County; no totals were found in the sources we reviewed.
  • No Apache Junction Unified bond or override question for November 2026 was verified in the sources we reviewed; the district does not appear on the Maricopa County superintendent's 2026 measures list, which would not necessarily capture a Pinal administered measure.

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 instead.
  • It must be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3. Postmarks do not count.
  • Sign and date the affidavit envelope, and write a current phone number on it.
  • Leaving any item blank is allowed. In this race you may vote for one candidate, two, or none; it does not affect the rest of your ballot.

Sources

  • The Decent Ballot, Pinal County 2026 voter guide: decentballot.com
  • GoodParty's Apache Junction Unified school board page (goodparty.org) confirms the same four candidate names.
  • Ballotpedia, Municipal elections in Maricopa County, Arizona (2026): ballotpedia.org
Ballot Math: analysis only, no endorsements. Every candidate in this race got the same template: background, stated priorities, the record that exists, and honest notes where the record is thin.