Missing a school board race on your ballot? It was probably cancelled, and here is what that means

In Maricopa County in 2026, 24 traditional school districts had their governing board elections cancelled outright, two more had seats cancelled in part, and three districts had seats with no candidates at all. If your district is on this page, there is no school board race on your ballot because the outcome was already determined by who filed. Your district's tax measures, if it has any, are still on the ballot and still decided by your vote.

The mechanism, in plain terms: under Arizona law (A.R.S. 15-424(E)), when the number of candidates who qualify for a school board seat does not exceed the number of seats, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors may cancel that election. Candidates who filed unopposed are appointed to the seat as if they had been elected, with the same term, the same authority, and the same accountability at the next election. If nobody filed for a seat, the County School Superintendent (Shelli Boggs) appoints a qualified person to fill it. The county cancels to save the cost of printing and counting a race whose result cannot change.

Why so many, and what it says

School board seats are unpaid, meet at night, and in 2026 many districts could not attract more candidates than seats. A cancellation is not a scandal and not a takeover: it is the paperwork reflecting that no contest formed. The accountability cost is real, though. An appointed-as-if-elected member never faced a campaign, a forum, or a vote, and voters who wanted a different board had no lever this cycle. The remedy the system offers is the filing deadline for 2028 and 2030, not this ballot.

One nuance from 2026 worth knowing: cancellation requires that the race be truly uncontested. In Higley Unified, a board member resigned after the filing deadline and the superintendent moved to appoint a successor; a judge ruled the seat had to be elected instead, and Higley voters do have a board election, including a court-ordered write-in race for that two-year seat. Where a contest exists, the election happens.

The fully cancelled districts

Names are the candidates certified by the County School Superintendent on August 25, 2026. Each is appointed as if elected. Districts marked with a measure have a full page on this site.

District	Seats	Appointed as if elected
Aguila Elementary	2	Rogelia Robles (write-in), Marisol Hernandez (write-in)
Arlington Elementary (bond)	2	Brian Hansen, Phillip Camp
Avondale Elementary	2	David Griego, Walter Gonzales
Balsz Elementary (two questions)	2	Claudia Kline (write-in), Ray Michaels (write-in)
Buckeye Elementary	3	Barbara "Jane" Hunt, Jennie Ragsdale, Joel John
Chandler Unified	2	Zeyna Pruzhanovsky, Kurt Rohrs
Creighton Elementary (two overrides)	2	Katie McLean, Sophia Carrillo
Fountain Hills Unified (override)	3	Lillian Acker, Bernard Hoenle, Fran Murray
Gilbert Unified (bond and site sale)	2	Whitney Pitt, Chad Thompson
Glendale Elementary	2	Brenda Bartels, Alejandra Lopez
Laveen Elementary	3 (two 4-year, one 2-year)	Linda Abegg and Michele Anderson (4-year); Maritza Cortazar (2-year)
Litchfield Elementary (Prop 437)	2	Eddie James, Ryan Owens
Madison Elementary	2	Christine Thompson, Roger Freeman
Mobile Elementary	2	Patricia Blair, Delores Brown
Murphy Elementary	2, only 1 candidate	Guadalupe Gonzalez is appointed; the second seat is filled by superintendent appointment
Nadaburg Unified	2	Deborah Parris, Valarie Serrano
Palo Verde Elementary	2 to 3 (sources differ), only 1 candidate	Matthew Vanderhart is appointed; remaining seat(s) filled by superintendent appointment
Paloma Elementary	2, only 1 candidate	Regan Ross is appointed; the second seat is filled by superintendent appointment
Pendergast Elementary	2	Martin Quezada, Susan Serin
Riverside Elementary (bond and override)	2	Martin Martinez, Joyce Luckie
Tempe Union High School	2	Justine Centanni, Stephania Lenzi
Washington Elementary (override)	2	Kyle Clayton, Roxanne Smith
Wickenburg Unified (override)	2	Stephen Doug Roberts, Martin North
Wilson Elementary	2	Anna Martinez, Mario Martinez

The Tempe Union seats carry context the table cannot hold: incumbent Andres Barraza filed and then withdrew in July 2026, citing his father's illness, and board vice president Amanda Steele chose not to seek another term, which is how a large high school district ended up uncontested.

Partial cancellations: some seats elected, some not

Alhambra Elementary: the two four-year seats were cancelled (Mathew Nevarez and Wilmarie Maldonado-Castro appointed), while the two-year seat is contested. See the Alhambra page.
Phoenix Union: Ward 1 (Isaac Young) and Ward 5 (Steve Gallardo) were cancelled as unopposed; Wards 2, 3, and 4 are contested. See the Phoenix Union page.

Seats nobody ran for: filled by appointment

Gila Bend Unified: four seats, zero candidates. All four are filled by superintendent appointment.
Morristown Elementary: two seats, zero candidates.
Sentinel Elementary: two seats, zero candidates.

Plus the leftover seats in Murphy, Palo Verde, and Paloma above, where one candidate filed for a multi-seat race. In each case the County School Superintendent appoints a qualified district resident, who serves and then faces the voters at the next cycle if they wish to continue.

Cancelled career and technical (JTED) seats

EVIT (East Valley Institute of Technology): District 1, Peter Boyle (incumbent); District 4, Jared Hancock (incumbent, two-year term); District 5, Laura Metcalfe (incumbent); District 9, Jayson Hunt (incumbent, two-year term). EVIT Districts 3 and 7 are contested and have their own pages on this site.
West-MEC: District 1, Jezreel Ramirez; District 2, Linda Busam (incumbent); District 7, Frank Straka (incumbent).

For completeness: EVIT Districts 2, 6, 8, and 10 and the other West-MEC districts had no seat up in 2026 at all. Staggered terms mean only some seats appear each cycle; an absent seat is not a cancelled seat. The Maricopa County Regional School District No. 509 (the county accommodation school) has no elected November race in any source we reviewed.

Verification notes

Mobile Elementary: the county list's cancellation marker was not visible in the text we extracted, but the Arizona Republic lists the race as cancelled and two candidates for two seats meets the statutory test; we follow the Republic.
Palo Verde's open seat count differs between sources (the county list shows two seats; the Republic's guide says three). Either way, one candidate filed, and the balance is appointed.
The Save Our Schools guide spells a Fountain Hills appointee "Bernhard Hoenle"; the county list's "Bernard Hoenle" is used here.
Appointment timing and the appointees' swearing-in follow the county's normal calendar; individual appointment announcements are made by the superintendent's office.

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.
A missing school board race is not a ballot error. If your district is listed here, your ballot is complete without one. Your district's measures, if any, still appear and still count.

Sources

Maricopa County School Superintendent, certified candidate list, August 25, 2026: schoolsup.org (PDF)
Arizona Republic, August 21, 2026, on the cancelled elections and appointments: azcentral.com
Maricopa County School Superintendent, governing board elections page: mcesaaz.squarespace.com
Ballotpedia, Municipal elections in Maricopa County, Arizona (2026): ballotpedia.org