By Staff Reporter |
In the latest escalation between Maricopa County leaders’ legal jockeying for elections authority, the Board of Supervisors reportedly subpoenaed staff with the Recorder’s Office.
Recorder Justin Heap issued a statement on Tuesday accusing the board of attempting “to intimidate and bully” his staff and “unduly influence” the pending court ruling. The recorder and board have been fighting for months in the Maricopa County Superior Court over who has proper authority over which elections administration powers.
“Their actions are beyond inappropriate,” said Heap. “My staff has bent over backwards to work with the Board, yet despite our earnest efforts the Board continues to engage in unhinged, emotional, and unprofessional behavior.”
Within the hour of Heap’s post, supervisor and former chair Thomas Galvin quoted Scripture that appeared to allude that the truth of the matter was beyond Heap’s remarks.
“‘And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’ – John 8:32,” posted Galvin.
Galvin also shared a video from Chair Kate Brophy McGee addressing the accusations from Heap. McGee said their subpoena concerned an apparent conflict between Heap’s remarks during his annual budget request and sworn testimony on voter disenfranchisement from Heap’s staff, both of which took place last week on separate days.
“At Maricopa County, we count every lawful vote. That’s why we take any claim of disenfranchisement seriously, and have asked the Recorder’s office to provide further testimony regarding conflicting claims recently made by Recorder Heap and his staff,” said McGee. “This is an important issue and we need straight answers. If any voters are being disenfranchised, we will fix it immediately. If not, then the Recorder’s office must clarify to the court why it provided such testimony. Maricopa County voters need the truth.”
During last week’s board hearing, Heap said no voters had been disenfranchised since he took office in January 2025.
“We stated that we want this machine to make sure that we don’t disenfranchise voters. We didn’t say that any voters have been disenfranchised since I took office in the administration,” said Heap.
Two days earlier, Heap’s chief of staff, Sam Stone, issued sworn testimony in the Maricopa County Superior Court that disenfranchisement was occurring in the present.
“We had two potential places we would have made the substantial changes to one or the other to bring this in, to not disenfranchise voters, which is happening now,” said Stone.
Stone directed the court to testimony from Janine Petty, senior director of voter registration, who said disenfranchisement occurred during the 2024 election when certain provisional ballots were processed as federal-only due to time constraints even though they were voted as a full ballot.
“[Those provisional ballots] would be counted, but they would not be afforded the full ballot. So they would be duplicated by the elections board to be a federal ballot, when that voter was entitled a full ballot and voted a full ballot,” said Petty.
Heap earned a legal win on Wednesday against the board after the Maricopa County Superior Court rejected the board’s move to stop America First Legal (AFL) from representing Heap in court going forward.
AFL sued the board on behalf of Heap last summer over the contested elections administration powers, a battle stemming from a “lame duck” agreement between the outgoing recorder, Stephen Richer, and a board majority also on their way out.
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