by Matthew Holloway | Feb 27, 2026 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has sent a letter to Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap regarding preparations for in-person early voting for the upcoming July Primary Election, urging cooperation to ensure sufficient voting locations, staff, and equipment are in place.
In a joint statement dated Feb. 24, 2026, Board Chair Kate Brophy McGee and Vice Chair Debbie Lesko said the board delivered the letter to Recorder Heap now that his office “oversees that important function.”
The supervisors emphasized that “big decisions need to be made in short order” to guarantee that in-person early voting is adequately staffed and resourced for the 27-day early voting period prescribed by state law.
The letter requests that Heap provide the “same level of service that Maricopa County voters have come to expect in past years, when the Board oversaw in-person early voting.” The supervisors wrote that this includes a “large number of sites spread out evenly and fairly across our county” during the early voting period.
Brophy McGee and Lesko also asked whether the recorder would collaborate with the board’s elections department, which they described as “staffed, resourced, and experienced in this area.”
According to the Board’s Feb. 24 statement, the letter followed a court filing by Recorder Heap in which he indicated he was willing to cooperate on logistical issues. Supervisors also said they had sent a staff-level communication outlining key decisions that must be made to meet statutory deadlines.
The board approved a requested $550,000 budget increase for the Recorder’s Office, earmarked for signature verification efforts. “Signature verification is under the complete and total control of the recorder,” Brophy McGee stated in a press release on Wednesday regarding the $550,000 increase. “While we have questions about the recorder’s new process, we will proceed with the recorder’s budget requests to ensure sufficient resources are in place by the 2026 primary. Our top goal is fair and secure elections.”
The supervisors gave Heap until Friday to respond to the board’s letter so that preparations can proceed in advance of statutory deadlines for the July Primary. The statement concludes that if the recorder does not respond, the board will assume he can manage in-person early voting “without our help.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Staff Reporter | Feb 15, 2026 | News
By Staff Reporter |
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is divided on moving forward with a pathway that may result in the recorder’s removal, even with little time left before the primary election.
The board published a statement Wednesday announcing their vote requiring Recorder Justin Heap to provide a written report and sworn public testimony on February 18.
The board statement accused Heap of “lying to the public” and stonewalling the board.
“He has been unreliable. He has been unprofessional. He has been untruthful. He has been unaccountable,” read the statement. “The Board cannot responsibly set a budget, make policy decisions, or oversee county operations, including an active election in Tempe right now, without complete and truthful information from Mr. Heap.”
The board made its decision during its formal meeting on Wednesday. State law authorizes the board to require any county officer to make reports under oath concerning office duties.
The written report would address key issues identified in Chair Kate Brophy McGee’s letter to Heap last month concerning expenditures and prepayments, signature verification and curing, and the special election board and deputy registrar program.
Heap will also be required to provide the identities of the provisional voters his office said were disenfranchised; records of requests by his office for federal funds, legislative appropriations, or county funds; communications with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office concerning the distribution of mail-in ballots to voters who didn’t request them in the 2025 special election in Congressional District 7; and records of the reassignment of the space in the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to his office.
Although the supervisors voted unanimously to impose these requirements on Heap, not all supervisors supported the official statement condemning Heap.
Supervisor Mark Stewart said the statement wasn’t approved by him. Not only that, Stewart said, but the remarks were disrespectful and potentially damaging to current negotiations with Heap.
“We are in active negotiations on the Shared Services Agreement, and my focus remains on reaching a constructive resolution that delivers results for the people we serve,” said Stewart.
Other supervisors fanned the flames of the statement.
Supervisor Debbie Lesko shared her remarks from Wednesday’s meeting, in which she said she endured over a year of frustrations with Heap. Lesko lodged multiple accusations against Heap, such as that he had something to hide.
“I feel Recorder Heap has left us no alternative,” said Lesko.
The only alternative for the board would be to continue negotiations with the recorder’s office through public discussions and the court.
This pathway by the board may lead to the largest county in the state and fourth-largest county in the nation without its elections leader with a few months left to go before elections begin. The primary election was moved up from August to July recently.
Should Heap refuse to comply with Wednesday’s order, the board may opt to remove the recorder from office with just five months to go before the primary elections.
This latest action by the board appears to be their response to the Maricopa County Superior Court striking down the board’s attempt to subpoena three staff members within Heap’s office. This court restraining order occurred within the case initiated by Heap last summer to restore elections powers to his office.
AZ Free News reached out to Heap regarding the board’s decision. As of this report, no response has been received.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Feb 9, 2026 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Several of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors reviewed the recorder’s new signature verification process this week.
Supervisors Mark Stewart and Debbie Lesko visited the recorder’s office on Friday to observe what Recorder Justin Heap has promised to be a stronger approach to signature verification.
Also present were members of the Maricopa County Republicans and local election integrity advocates.
Supervisor Stewart publicized some of the training materials given to elections workers tasked with signature verification, including metrics for accepting or flagging signatures based on broad and local characteristics.
The new format for signature verification has two levels of review, the first for the user and second for the manager. At the level one user review, two signature reviewers of differing political parties compare signatures with the reference signature on file.
Signatures with obvious matches based on characteristics may be accepted as good signatures, while signature comparisons that yield differences outweighing similarities must be flagged for level two review by a manager.
The level two managerial review concerns the review of all available signatures in a voter’s registration record, which can be upwards of 50 samples. The signature pool could include signatures from voter registration forms, verified early voting affidavits, and in-person sign-ins from rosters.
Signatures consistent with the signature pool would be approved and sent to another level two manager of a differing political party for review, while nonmatching signatures would be set aside for further action. The recorder’s office has a set limit of disposition types: no signature, household exchange, need packet (a catch-all disposition type), deceased (which flags National Voter Registration Act research), and pre-questioned signature.
That last disposition qualifies for automatic submission to another manager of a differing political party for level two review.
All signatures with any discrepancy at any levels are required to be part of a mandatory audit review, set at two percent currently.
Training materials also made clear the efforts by the recorder’s office to integrate user-friendly updates to signature review software.
Level one reviewer screens will display the current election affidavit signature alongside the historical affidavit signatures from newest to oldest, removing the old requirement for users to scroll to compare signatures.
The training materials also stressed that users should default to flagging signatures for review for any reasons other than a “good signature” determination.
The visit marked an unusual bright point in the strained relationship between the board and the recorder.
The board and recorder have been engaged in a year-long legal battle in the Maricopa County Superior Court over elections administration powers.
This week marked a particularly tenuous moment in the battle after board leadership issued subpoenas against three of the recorder’s staff members.
The Maricopa County Superior Court sided with the recorder on the issue and put in place a temporary restraining order against the board to halt the subpoenas.
Friday’s visit was not a signal by the two visiting supervisors that they were on the recorder’s side in this court battle. Lesko reposted statements from Board Chair Kate Brophy McGee addressing the subpoenas. Stewart issued his own statement recognizing the validity of arguments from both his fellow board members and the recorder’s office.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Jan 4, 2026 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Corporate media is making the case that the state’s largest sheriff’s office still needs federal oversight for racial profiling.
ABC 15 aired a segment criticizing a court filing requesting an end to the decade-long federal oversight of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO). The oversight emerged from the Melendres v. Arpaio case, a class action complaint against allegedly racially motivated detentions that occurred during illegal migrant sweeps.
FOIAzona caught reporting errors made within a report by ABC 15 that no longer appears to be published, including the claim that MCSO filed the court motion.
However, it was the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (MCBOS) who submitted that court filing earlier this month. MCBOS has budgetary power over MCSO.
In their court filing, MCBOS made the case that MCSO had long ago achieved 100 percent compliance in remedying issues of racially motivated detentions. The county argued that further federal oversight would only divert critical funds for public safety.
In a video explaining the filing, MCBOS Chairman Thomas Galvin said the end to federal oversight was long overdue.
“After 14 years, four sheriffs, and hundreds of millions of spent tax dollars, it is essential to defend taxpayer money if federal oversight is no longer warranted,” said Galvin. “All that’s left to enforce are matters unrelated to discriminatory policing which should be left to the sheriff who was elected by you: the Maricopa County residents.”
The 14 years of oversight have cost the county over $300 million in compliance. Around ten percent of those payments went to the court monitor, Robert Warshaw.
Leading up to MCBOS filing were months of allegations that Warshaw has a financial incentive to continue federal oversight of MCSO. Warshaw has earned over $30 million in monitor fees since taking on oversight of MCSO in January 2014 — around $3 million annually.
Warshaw faces similar accusations of exploiting federal oversight orders for personal gain in connection to his 15-plus years of monitoring the Oakland Police Department in California. There he earns over $1 million annually.
Warshaw has also earned millions from federal monitor assignments in New York, Michigan, and Louisiana.
Warshaw formerly served as the deputy drug czar for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under former President Bill Clinton.
Almost a decade ago, Judicial Watch reported on allegations that Warshaw allegedly employed “harsh” tactics that distracted from the county’s law enforcement activities.
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said Warshaw’s presence is no longer warranted.
“There is no defense for this ‘federal monitor,’” said Mitchell. “One more reason I like to get my news from the non-fiction section.”
Mitchell has been a vocal critic of Warshaw’s continued presence.
“It’s time we stop talking about Joe Arpaio — he is long gone and has been replaced by 3 different sheriffs from both political parties — and start talking about why the federal monitor, Robert Warshaw, is dragging this on and on,” said Mitchell in a May post. “Maricopa taxpayers should be outraged that we are at $350 million. Warshaw has no incentive to wrap this up.”
Back in October, Congressman Andy Biggs also asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to lift MCSO’s federal oversight. Supervisors Mark Stewart and Debbie Lesko, along with Mitchell, offered their support for the letter.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Nov 23, 2025 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Maricopa County leadership is dissatisfied with the rejection rate of ballot signatures.
Following Wednesday’s canvass of this month’s election, Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas Galvin said the new signature verification policy was problematic for having yielded a much higher rejection rate compared to years past.
“At this rate, 15,269 ballots would’ve been rejected in ‘24 prez election,” said Galvin. “Only 7,220 were rejected in ‘24.”
About 30,000 ballots were subject to further review, and of those 15,000 went through the curing process. Altogether, about 5,900 ballots were rejected following the curing process out of about 700,000 total cast ballots. An additional 1,000 ballots were rejected for having no signatures and the voter failing to respond to the county’s curing attempts by deadline.
The rejection rate rose to .8 percent this go around. Last year and in 2023, the rejection rate was .3 percent. It was .1 percent in 2022.
The recorder’s office also clarified that this was the first election in decades to send mailed ballots to all voters, which they say also contributed to the higher rejection rate.
Heap responded to Galvin’s criticism by accusing the chairman of deflecting from the county’s election bungles with fabricated, nonexistent issues in his office.
“Instead of holding his own staff accountable for misplacing thousands of Election Day ballots and illegally seizing control of the Recorder’s statutory responsibilities, Chairman Galvin chose to attack the only part of the process that worked flawlessly,” said Heap.
Heap was referencing the misplacement of two sealed transport boxes with nearly 2,300 ballots by election workers this month. The ballots were discovered several days after the election occurred, on the day of the ballot curing deadline. This forced the recorder’s office to complete ballot processing in record time, and attempt to cure ballots in a matter of hours.
Galvin acknowledged the 2022 election was a disaster in private, sources say, but publicly he defended the county’s administration.
The Heap administration implemented certain changes to ease and strengthen signature verification efforts: side-by-side screen viewing of a voter’s on-file signature and their cast ballot signature, rather than having a worker scroll up and down; and requiring three separate levels of review rather than relying on the same person double-checking their work.
During Wednesday’s board of supervisors meeting, Heap repeatedly defended his position that the signature on the cast ballot must match the voter’s historic signatures on file in their record.
“In the end, if we have a signature, and the signature on the envelope does not match the signatures we have on file, and it’s now been reviewed through multiple phases, we cannot accept that signature unless that person calls,” said Heap. “We can make all diligent efforts to reach out but, in the end, the signatures either match or they don’t.”
The supervisors were divided on Heap’s approach — and whether the changes were worth it — although they did agree that the bipartisan review was a good step.
Supervisor Debbie Lesko approved of Heap’s signature verification process.
“I’ll give you credit when credit’s due, and I think if you’ve done it faster and it’s still accurate and you’re able to make it easier for the people, it sounds like a good thing,” said Lesko.
Supervisor Steve Gallardo questioned how time-consuming the process was in comparison to Heap’s predecessor, Stephen Richer. Heap responded that the signature verification has sped up due to the bipartisan team setup, and that they concluded their work the day after the election.
Some familiar voices chimed into the social media chatter over the bristling interactions between select supervisors and Heap.
Maricopa County’s former recorder, Stephen Richer, said Heap’s approach went against the state’s signature verification law.
“That’s not even how statute works,” said Richer.
Richer told KJZZ that election fraud through stolen mail-in ballots in an off-year election was so far-fetched as to be humorous.
“It’s laughable to think 5,000-plus people stole ballot envelopes and forged signatures so they could cast one more vote in a school bond election,” said Richer.
ABC15’s Garrett Archer said Heap’s multiple levels of review was problematic because matching signatures has a certain level of subjectivity that can cause individuals to disagree on what they’re seeing.
“In the old process, private information was on screen that could be used as a second check. This has been stripped to allow observers to be closer to the process,” said Archer. “If they so choose to proceed this way, there will likely be 80,000+ signature elevations in 2026. They need to staff accordingly or this could become a major problem.”
An elections advocate, Merissa Hamilton, countered that signature verification is “ultimately subjective,” and that the elimination of the private information component allows for a more unbiased review of the ballot.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
