By Staff Reporter |
The sole Maricopa County supervisor to extend support for the county recorder over the ongoing elections authority spat has requested court assistance with mediation.
In a filing last week in County Recorder Justin Heap’s case against the board of supervisors before the Maricopa County Superior Court, Supervisor Mark Stewart filed a response amending his vote from opposition against to support for his fellow supervisors’ motion to stay the ruling.
Some interpreted the filing as Stewart backtracking his support for the recorder. Stewart has sided with Heap generally on the proper division of elections authority.
Stewart said ongoing mediation attempts have failed and required court intervention.
“Supervisor Stewart supports a temporary stay solely for the purpose of mediation,” stated the filing. “Previous efforts at mediation have failed despite the parties all claiming a willingness to mediate based upon timing, preconditions, and disagreement over the mediator.”
Stewart requested the court order Heap and the board to attend a mediation before the court appointed mediator within the next two weeks.
In a video posted online, Stewart explained that his filing was not a challenge to the court ruling, like the motion put forth by his colleagues, but simply a means to “alleviate some of the operational ambiguity” within remaining questions of operations so that board and recorder staff could move forward.
“What we do not need is to prolong this conflict. We need a defined path forward,” said Stewart. “While we may have different views on the path forward, I know we all have the same goal of delivering reliable, secure, transparent elections for Maricopa voters.”
Stewart said he didn’t want the case to go to appeal. That was something his fellow supervisors desired.
Last month, the superior court ruled in Heap’s favor and restored the county recorder’s election powers. The court rejected the board’s claim of plenary authority and declared it had acted unlawfully beyond statutory authority. A specific finding of wrongdoing concerned the removal of personnel, systems, and equipment from the recorder’s office.
The court warned, further, that continued absconding of election powers by the board of supervisors would likely result in voter disenfranchisement.
“The evidence at trial established that the Recorder’s inability to exercise meaningful control over election systems and staff will likely cause concrete operational harms, including inability to timely process provisional ballots under A.R.S. § 16-134, resulting in voters being denied tabulation of the full ballots they had voted and to which they were entitled,” stated the ruling. “These harms will not resolve and may likely increase absent court intervention, particularly as general election cycles approach.”
The board argued in a filing earlier this week that the court’s ruling conflicted with state statute and would interfere with administration of the upcoming jurisdictional election scheduled to occur in less than two weeks.
“This ruling creates confusion about key aspects of election administration including chain of custody, on-site tabulation, and the handing of mail-in ballots on Election Day,” said Board of Supervisors Chair Kate Brophy McGee in a statement. “Making major changes in the middle of the election cycle is not just a terrible idea for voters, it’s going to be almost impossible to implement responsibly.”
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