The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors gained a new ally in their ongoing court battle against Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap over elections authority.
The board received a supporting brief from a former longtime Maricopa County recorder, Helen Purcell.
Purcell, a Republican, filed the 57-page brief with the help of the States United Democracy Center (SUDC) — the same organization that colluded with Attorney General Kris Mayes to prosecute 2020 allies of President Donald Trump.
Purcell’s brief said that the board wasn’t mandated by statute to delegate election administration duties to the recorder but instead retained the power of discretionary judgment to award that authority based on whether the recorder was “cooperative and experienced,” and proving to “serv[e] the interests of the county and its voters.”
Further on, Purcell made the case that the court should “preserve the status quo” by keeping elections authority with the board, due to the nearness of the primary election set to take place next month. She referenced a Supreme Court case involving her, Purcell v. Gonzalez, and the resulting “Purcell Principle”: that courts shouldn’t modify election rules too close to an election.
Purcell also claimed that state law designating elections authority was ambiguous, and that the trial court that ruled in Heap’s favor had established “a blanket hierarchy” not imposed by the law.
“[That ruling declared that] the recorder controls every function where the office is named, and the ‘other officer’ serves only at the recorder’s discretion,” stated Purcell. “That construction disregards the historical and operational context against which these statutes were enacted, and […] would produce results the legislature could not have intended, stripping away the flexibility the legislature built into the statutory scheme.”
Instead, Purcell said the recorder and board each maintained direct authority over certain functions, and shared some. Recorder functions included voter registration and early ballot signature verification, and board functions included Election Day operations, ballot tabulation, and jurisdictional elections, said Purcell, and the two shared functions like chain of custody documentation.
Although Purcell departed from the recorder’s office nearly 10 years ago, she is no stranger to reentering the muddy waters of election-related disputes. Purcell served as county recorder from 1988 to 2017.
Purcell filed a joint brief in support of maintaining a ranked choice voting ballot initiative in 2024 with former state lawmaker Ken Bennett. Another former recorder for Maricopa County, Stephen Richer, also filed a brief in support of the initiative.
Ranked choice voting would require voters to rank every candidate on their ballot. Only the candidate to earn 50% of the vote would be declared the winner. Otherwise, voters would have to enter additional rounds of voting until a candidate breaks 50%.
Gov. Katie Hobbs appointed Purcell as co-chair of an elections task force her first year in office, and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes praised Purcell for the ensuing report. Hobbs ultimately allocated over $2 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds for elections-related initiatives proposed by the task force for the 2024 election. ARPA funds were initially meant for economic stimulus efforts pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republican lawmakers criticized the task force at the time for its “secretive” conduct, and alleged that the task force was Hobbs’ way of circumventing statutory requirements to modify election law and procedures.
The task force was also rumored to be influenced by SUDC.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Purcell and Bennett filed a joint brief in support of ranked choice voting. That statement has been corrected.
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Arizona’s former secretary of state, state senator, and 2020 election auditor, Ken Bennett, will serve as chair of AUDIT USA.
AUDIT USA — Americans United for Democracy, Integrity, and Transparency in Elections — is a nonprofit dedicated to public oversight of elections that best deters election fraud. Bennett, a Republican, will lead AUDIT USA, though it maintains a bipartisan cohort and its co-founder is a self-described “progressive Democrat.”
AUDIT USA’s current efforts focus on establishing Auditable Ballot Examination (ABE), an audit system independent of the Election Management System enabling officials and voters to verify election outcomes through access to anonymized digital ballot images. ABE reportedly boasts the capability of sorting by race, precinct, overvotes, undervotes, and write-in candidates promptly.
AUDIT USA offers a version of ABE that operates as a beta to showcase its capabilities.
AUDIT USA worked on ABE-prompted bipartisan legislation in 2023 that gained the support of Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.
“In an era where democracy faces unprecedented challenges, every vote must be verifiable, and every citizen must have access to clear, trustworthy election data,” stated Bennett in a press release.
Fontes, in a statement, said he welcomed the proof of clean elections that the proposed audit system would afford.
“[This tool would] get rid of the election fraud nonsense,” said Fontes. “Get rid of the lies and the conspiracy theories once and for all.”
Other goals of AUDIT USA include email-enabled excel spreadsheets hyperlinked to securely stored, cloud-based ballot images; optimizing platforms to become more user friendly; and improving verification systems to increase the accuracy and speed of cross-check examinations of election results.
Bennett served as the Arizona Senate’s liaison during the audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results conducted by private data firm Cyber Ninjas. Around that stint in elections oversight, Bennett served in the State Senate from 1999 to 2007 and then 2023 to 2025.
Bennett capitalized on that latter return to the Arizona legislature to advocate for election integrity improvements. He was the lawmaker who led on the ABE-inspired legislation in 2023, and in 2024 he attempted to realize the proposal again through a $2 million designation from the budget to pay for the creation of the analytical tool.
In that 2023 proposal, SB1324, Bennett’s pitch to lawmakers cited the close loss endured by now-Congressman Abe Hamadeh in the attorney general’s race. Bennett argued that voters would have more confidence if they could see for themselves that the 280-vote lead by Mayes was truly owing to thousands of voters declining to vote in that race.
Governor Katie Hobbs ultimately vetoed the bill after it was substituted for HB2560 with its similar provisions. Hobbs claimed the bill would create problems with anonymity and both misinformation and disinformation.
AUDIT USA co-founder John Brakey served under Bennett as deputy liaison for the 2021 election audit. Brakey currently serves as the organization director. Other members: secretary and treasurer Arlene Leaf, and board members Bill Risner, Bennie Smith, Lynn Bernstein, and Susan Pynchon.
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Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and State Senator Ken Bennett filed amicus briefs in defense of a Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) ballot initiative with the Arizona Supreme Court last week.
Bennett served as the secretary of state from 2009 to 2015. He filed his brief jointly with Helen Purcell, the former Maricopa County recorder who served nearly 30 years.
Richer said in his filing for Smith v. Fontes that the votes should be counted for RCV, or Prop 140, the “Make Elections Fair Act” — regardless of the existence of a disqualifying number of duplicate signatures gathered — because the “election has already begun” and, he says, state law prohibits the prevention of counting votes cast.
“Hiding the results or attempting to prevent the vote from being tabulated is an inequitable result,” said Richer. “And it is at odds with Arizona public policy that demands government transparency. Not counting the vote does not mean it did not happen.”
Richer said all arguments concerning the initiative’s qualifications to be on the ballot were rendered moot after the deadline passed to certify and print the ballots.
“To be resolved with a high degree of certainty may not be currently possible given the election time constraints,” said Richer. “The issue has now, at least partially, gone to the people. The Recorder believes there is benefit to allowing the vote to occur, and assuming it is otherwise constitutional, to count.”
Richer stated that his office had already printed over 21,500 different ballot styles and mailed many of them out to in-state residents as well as military and overseas voters, some of which have been returned: over 1,100 out of about 8,500.
“Recorder submits that once the ballots are printed, the time for signature challenges must end,” said Richer.
Richer also said that state law prohibits the destruction of any public record of a vote, and that Maricopa County’s tabulation machines would tabulate the votes returned.
The recorder noted that state law does allow for courts to enjoin the certification and printing of ballots, but not the power to enjoin the counting of votes.
“[I]f the voting tally is a public record, the Recorder does not see how Maricopa County can either destroy it or fail to release it,” said Richer.
Similarly, Bennett and Purcell argued that their combined expertise on elections made it clear that timeliness in elections takes precedence over validity.
Bennett and Purcell cited court precedent in their argument of mootness regarding the challenge to Prop 140’s validity. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes instructed county election officials to include Prop 140 on their ballots printed in late August.
“Courts have consistently upheld the principle that pre-election challenges must be resolved before the ballot printing deadline,” said the pair. “[And] as a practical matter, invalidating Prop 140 after voting has already begun would result in electoral chaos and damage voter confidence in the efficacy of their votes.”
That ballot printing deadline occurred a day after the Arizona Supreme Court remanded the case to the Maricopa County Superior Court for review, citing the exclusion of evidence pertaining to 40,000 duplicate signatures. The exclusion of those contested signatures reduce petition signatures to what is below the total required to qualify for the ballot.
Though the Maricopa County Superior Court did find that nearly all of the 40,000 signatures were duplicates, the court ruled that the state constitution didn’t allow for those votes cast on Prop 140 to be ignored. That ruling led to the appeal which the Arizona Supreme Court now considers, and with which Richer and Bennett disagree.
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A controversial Republican seeks to return to the Arizona State Legislature for the next two years.
State Senator Ken Bennett is running for reelection to his northern Arizona legislative seat, which is centered in the Republican stronghold of Yavapai County. Bennett returned to public service in January 2023, after taking a break from elected office after his tenure as Arizona Secretary of State from 2009-2014. Before his stint as the state’s top election’s official, Bennett served in the Arizona State Senate for eight years – four as the chamber’s president.
Bennett has a long history in the Prescott region. He is a fifth-generation Arizonan who started his life in Prescott and ran Bennett Oil as its CEO for more than 20 years. Prior to his service in the Arizona Legislature, Bennett was elected to the Prescott City Council.
During his time in the legislature this go-around, Bennett has angered some of his colleagues and constituents over his decisions to oppose certain Republican efforts. Bennett’s votes in the state senate earned him a draft censure from disgruntled precinct committeemen from Yavapai County. They alleged that Bennett was the only Republican in the Arizona State Senate to vote against SCR 1013, “which would have allowed the voters of Arizona to decide if boys are allowed in girl’s bathrooms and would have required teachers to obtain permission from a child’s parents before using that child’s preferred pronouns;” and the ‘Freedom to Move’ bill, “which would have let the voters of Arizona decide to create a Constitutional ban on taxes or fees for vehicle miles traveled and limitations on miles traveled.”
The draft censure noted that with those votes, “it is clear Ken Bennett is not representing the people of Yavapai County or the Yavapai County Republican Committee.”
Both measures would have been sent to Arizona voters for the November General Election if enough legislators had voted in favor.
On his website, Bennett responded to the charges levied against him by these local precinct committeemen. Addressing the claims about SCR1013, Bennett said, “This was unconstitutional because it combined two different issues into one ballot proposition. I voted in favor of the two separate bills in the Senate, but I wouldn’t violate the AZ Constitution that requires ballot measures be a single subject.” And combatting the attack against his ‘Freedom to Move’ vote, Bennett stated, “I supported two of the three parts of this proposal (Government shouldn’t monitor or limit the miles we drive) but it needed an amendment to allow government agencies to monitor their own fleets. The bill sponsor would not make this simple change. The other part of the proposal would let electric or other energy-sourced vehicles use our roads without helping to pay for road maintenance. Unfair.”
Senator Bennett also created controversy within his caucus when he helped to pause progress in passing a border security measure to be sent to state voters in November (HCR 2060). Bennett demanded changes to the bill to win his vote, that he appeared to obtain in a later amendment. He then joined his Republican colleagues in supporting the updated legislation, making it possible for Arizonans to help the state’s law enforcement better secure the border and communities in the federal government’s growing dereliction of duty – should they choose to approve of the ballot initiative this fall.
Bennett lists several awards and recognitions for his time of service on his website, including “Senator of the Year” from the Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Arizona Technology Council, and Arizona County School Superintendents; “Champion Award” from the Arizona League of Cities & Towns and Arizona Association of Economic Development; an “A” Rating from the National Rifle Association, and the Arizona Republican Assembly; and a 100% Pro-Life Record.
Danny Seiden, the President and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry, congratulated Bennett on winning his organization’s yearly award, writing, “For years, you have served Arizonans and been an outstanding voice for Arizona job creators. During time of divisiveness, you have continued to be a voice of reason and a champion of the business community. Your thoughtful approach at the state Senate this year has been recognized by many and your efforts to enact common sense policies is greatly appreciated. To strive for compromise on complex policies is a difficult task and we commend you for your ongoing leadership.”
The Republican State Senator currently serves as the Chairman of the Education Committee, the Vice Chair of the Elections Committee, and a member on the Appropriations Committee.
Arizona Legislative District 1 is a very safe Republican seat with a 27.8% vote spread between Republicans and Democrats in the last nine statewide elections, according to the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. In those last nine elections, Republicans have won all contests within the district’s boundaries.
Bennett is opposed in the Republican primary by former legislator Mark Finchem and Steve Zipperman. The winner of this race will face off against Democrat Mike Fogel, who is running unopposed in the primary for his party’s nomination.
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An Arizona Republican attempt to refer border security policies to the November General Election ballot is being met with severe resistance.
Earlier this week, Governor Katie Hobbs joined members of the Arizona Legislative Latino Caucus to reiterate their opposition to HCR 2060. The coalition wrote, “Over the past week, bipartisan organizations ranging from the Arizona Chamber of Commerce to border county law enforcement officials to immigrant rights groups have spoken up in opposition to the Republican-backed ballot referral that will kill jobs, drive away businesses, and demonize our communities of color. Yet again we join together to make it clear: this referral will not secure our border, and it will not make Arizonans safe.”
PRESS RELEASE: Governor Katie Hobbs and Democratic Latino Caucus Members Issue Joint Statement Denouncing Anti-Business HCR2060
— AZ Latino Legislative Caucus (@AZLatinoLC) May 14, 2024
The group added, ““What it will do is prevent law enforcement from fighting violent crimes like robbery and sexual assault, cost state and local governments hundreds of millions of dollars to try and enforce this unconstitutional measure, leave a black eye on our state’s reputation, and lead to a onslaught of racial profiling. This will separate families and inflict emotional and economic damage on households and communities, especially children. And now Dreamers, who followed the process and gained a legal status, are also under fire as the measure plans for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to come to an end.”
The comments from Hobbs and her legislative allies follow a post from the Arizona Senate Republicans Caucus “X” account, which highlighted the Democrat governor’s refusal to do what was necessary to help her state secure its border and protect citizens.
Katie Hobbs talks a big game on securing our border… but actions speak louder than words.
For the past two years, she's proliferated the lawlessness created by Biden's open border policies, and the citizens of Arizona are fed up.
Arizona legislative Republicans had expected a vote on HCR 2060 this week in the full Senate but were forced to postpone their plans due to one member of the Senate Republican Caucus being out of town (Wadsack) and one member expressing opposition to the measure as currently constructed (Bennett). A vote in the Senate chamber is still expected – maybe as soon as next week.
“The Secure the Border Act creates two new class 6 felonies for illegal aliens who try to submit false documents or information to evade Arizona’s strong E-Verify laws or obtain taxpayer-funded public benefits. It also requires state and local agencies to verify a noncitizen’s documents and eligibility for benefits through a federal database, known as the SAVE program, whenever noncitizens apply for public benefits.
“The Secure the Border Act establishes a new class 2 felony with enhanced prison sentences for drug dealers of illicit and deadly fentanyl. Fentanyl is the leading cause of overdose deaths in Arizona, and the amount seized at the southwest border is unprecedented.
“Finally, the Secure the Border Act incorporates legislation from Senate Bill 1231, which all House Republicans supported but Governor Hobbs vetoed, modeled on Texas Senate Bill 4, making it a crime for an illegal alien to enter or attempt to enter Arizona at any location other than a lawful point of entry.”
The efforts from Arizona legislators to send this referral to state voters comes two months after Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed SB 1231, the Arizona Border Invasion Act, which would have “ma[de] it unlawful for a person who is an alien (unlawful immigrant) to enter Arizona from a foreign nation at any location other than a lawful port of entry and outline[d] penalties for violations of illegally entering Arizona and provide[d] immunity from civil liability and indemnification for state and local government officials, employees and contractors who enforce this prohibition” – according to the purpose from the state Senate.
In her veto letter to Senate President Warren Petersen, Hobbs said, “This bill does not secure our border, will be harmful for communities and businesses in our state, and burdensome for law enforcement personnel and the state judicial system. Further, this bill presents significant constitutional concerns and would be certain to mire the State in costly and protracted litigation.”
Senator Janae Shamp, the sponsor of SB 1231, vowed that members of her party would continue to push forward solutions to combat the border crisis, saying, “The Republican-controlled Legislature will continue to prioritize closing our border and providing law enforcement with the tools they need. This veto is a slap in the face to them, Arizona’s victims of border-related crimes, and other citizens who will inevitably feel the wrath of this border invasion in one way, shape, or form at the hands of Hobbs and Biden.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
