A court has ordered Maricopa County officials to participate in a settlement conference next week to determine election powers.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney issued the order in response to Recorder Justin Heap’s request for contempt sanctions against the board.
The settlement conference is scheduled for Monday, June 22. The contempt hearing will remain scheduled for Tuesday, June 30 unless the board of supervisors and recorder resolve their dispute.
In the order issued last week announcing the contempt hearing, Blaney stated that the supervisors would be required to explain their “willful, continuing, and escalating noncompliance” with his order to restore certain election responsibilities, personnel, and technology to Heap.
Heap says the board has failed to return resources to include IT personnel, servers, databases, and websites, as well as refused to authorize the use of state and federal funds.
The superior court ordered the board of supervisors to restore those resources to Heap back in April.
The board has refused to comply. They say the ruling would cause problems with the administration of the upcoming primary and general elections.
“[T]he ruling creates more confusion than clarity,” said the board. “The Board of Supervisors has purchased equipment and planned to provide tabulation of early ballots in the 2026 Primary and General Elections. However, the ruling calls into question who is responsible for overseeing and executing this option for voters.”
Instead, the board has established an independent resource page to provide “just the facts” about the ongoing lawsuit and the Shared Services Agreement (SSA) negotiations that determine the distribution of election authority between the recorder and board.
SSAs distinguish election responsibilities between the board and recorder. Heap’s predecessor, Stephen Richer, coordinated with the prior board of supervisors to reduce the recorder’s scope of responsibilities in his final months in office in 2024.
The board appealed the superior court ruling with the Arizona Court of Appeals last month.
The board maintains that it has “consistently negotiated in good faith” with Heap. Several efforts to settle on a new SSA have failed. The board claims that Heap has made inconsistent demands and “at least twice” rejected their proposed new SSAs.
Also last week, a months-old incident involving employees within the recorder’s office resurfaced following a public announcement by Heap. Heap accused the board of retaliation over a criminal investigation into two of his employees for alleged theft of election equipment. Board Chair Kate Brophy McGee accused Heap of perpetuating “a parade of falsehoods, misrepresentations and strawmen.”
The board responded that Heap’s employees had no right to remove and later return an envelope scanner from the Maricopa County Election and Tabulation Center during the Tempe Jurisdictional Election. According to the board, that equipment was replaced due to the alleged security compromise.
Heap countered that the equipment belonged to his office and was therefore under the purview of his employees. Heap claimed the board ignored the alleged incident for months and dismissed their narrative as “baseless allegations.”
🚨 UPDATE: RECORD CORRECTS THE BOARD'S MANUFACTURED SCANDAL AND MALACIOUS SLANDER.
The Board spent 3 months sitting on these baseless allegations. Then, after losing in court again and facing contempt proceedings, it launched a smear campaign against career election employees… https://t.co/FRSwQb27ml
— Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap (@azjustinheap) June 12, 2026
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Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap rejected the Board of Supervisors’ proposal for a public meeting to discuss unresolved election administration disputes, arguing the offer was intended to create an appearance of cooperation while the Board continued litigating election authority issues.
In a June 5 statement, Heap said the Board’s latest proposal was “not a serious effort to resolve this dispute” and accused the Board of continuing “a pattern of delay, obstruction, and political theater” that has lasted more than 18 months.
For 18 months, the Board refused negotiations. Then they lost in court. Six weeks later, they're still refusing to comply and facing contempt proceedings and sanctions for ignoring the Court's order.
I've offered to sit down with the Board and our respective legal counsel so we… https://t.co/DHiFwzCC5J
— Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap (@azjustinheap) June 6, 2026
“They rejected proposals, rejected meetings, rejected mediation, and forced taxpayers to fund unnecessary litigation,” Heap said. “After losing decisively in Superior Court, they are now doing everything possible to delay compliance while pretending the problem is a lack of communication. The problem is not communication. The problem is that the Board refuses follow the law and accept Court orders they do not like.”
The dispute follows an April ruling in the litigation between Heap and the Board over election administration duties. The Maricopa County Superior Court issued a ruling in Heap’s favor on April 16, rejecting the Board’s claim of “plenary” authority over election administration, and held that Arizona law establishes the Recorder as the county’s principal elections officer.
The Recorder’s Office said the court ordered the Board to return control of IT staff, servers, databases, software, and election systems to the Recorder or fund their immediate replacement. The office also said the court found that the Board’s control of the Recorder’s IT systems and personnel constituted an “unlawful usurpation” of authority.
The Board has disputed Heap’s characterization of the litigation and said the April ruling could disrupt election operations. In a May 4 release, the Board said it had filed a motion for a stay pending appeal and warned that the ruling could cause “significant disruptions to election operations,” including confusion over chain of custody, on-site tabulation, and the handling of mail-in ballots on Election Day.
The Board has also maintained that it negotiated in good faith with Heap over a Shared Services Agreement. On the county’s election duties dispute page, the Board said it has “consistently negotiated in good faith” to reach an agreement on how to divide election responsibilities and said Heap chose to file a lawsuit in 2025 instead of finalizing a new agreement.
The latest exchange centered on whether unresolved Shared Services Agreement issues should be discussed in a public meeting or through structured negotiations involving counsel.
Heap pushed back in a June 1 letter, saying he had sought discussions and negotiations since the beginning of the dispute, had submitted multiple Shared Services Agreement proposals, had requested meetings with Board leadership, and had offered mediation.
Heap said the Board’s proposed public meeting format was “unlikely to achieve” the objective of resolving the dispute. He wrote that effective negotiations over legal authority, operational responsibilities, staffing, resources, and election administration required candid discussion, counsel’s participation, and a process capable of producing written agreements.
“Public Board meetings are not designed for that purpose,” Heap wrote in the letter. “They are designed for conducting public business. While appropriate for informing the public, they are ill-suited for negotiating and memorializing agreements between parties engaged in active litigation.”
Heap also said the Board could not “simultaneously litigate authority before the courts” while expecting the same disputes to be resolved through informal public meetings rather than structured negotiations involving counsel.
In a June 3 letter, Board Chair Kate Brophy McGee and Vice Chair Debbie Lesko asked Heap to meet in person “as quickly as you are available,” noting that UOCAVA ballots would be mailed within days and that early voting for the primary would begin in three weeks.
What a shocker😀…@azjustinheap puts out a statement on Friday night saying he won't meet with me & @KateBrophyMcGee to resolve elections issues because he doesn't want the meetings livestreamed to the public. Election negotiations should be public. I have nothing to hide.
“The Board seeks, and voters deserve, a resolution to these SSA issues,” Brophy McGee and Lesko wrote in the letter. “There is no time to waste.”
Brophy McGee and Lesko said legal counsel and staff would be welcome to attend, but said the in-person dialogue should be limited to elected officials “empowered by and accountable to the people,” according to the June 3 letter. They also said the discussion should be livestreamed because election administration is a public-facing government responsibility.
“This discussion needs to occur in the light of day, not in secret,” Brophy McGee and Lesko wrote.
In his June 5 statement, Heap said the Board was demanding a public meeting where it would control the agenda, format, questions, and discussion while continuing to litigate the same issues in court.
“The Board has also attempted to portray my rejection of this proposal as opposition to transparency,” Heap said. “That is an obvious lie. I have offered to meet with Board leadership, County staff, and legal counsel for both parties. I proposed specific meeting dates and offered to make myself, my staff, and counsel available at any other time the Board preferred. The Board rejected that proposal.”
Heap said real negotiations require decision-makers, legal counsel, candid discussion, and a process capable of producing binding written agreements. He said public hearings would instead produce “speeches, soundbites, and political posturing.”
The disagreement comes as the Board appeals the April ruling and Heap continues seeking compliance with the court’s order. The Recorder’s Office said in a May 29 statement that Heap had requested the Superior Court hold the Board in civil contempt for allegedly refusing to comply with the April 16 ruling.
The election authority dispute remains pending as Maricopa County officials prepare for upcoming elections without a new Shared Services Agreement in place.
Several Maricopa County staffers are now in the middle of an elections authority dispute between the recorder’s office and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
Several employees with the recorder’s office have been placed under investigation for the alleged theft of a piece of election equipment.
Several employees were contacted by an officer with the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office over the weekend as part of a criminal investigation initiated by special counsel appointed by Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, following a complaint from the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (BOS).
Mitchell’s office said MCAO has no involvement in the investigation.
An allegation was made to Maricopa County Attorney @Rachel1Mitchell, who had a conflict of interest, and she appointed a Special Counsel. MCAO is not involved in the investigation and has no further comment. https://t.co/HA2GYOxkDR
— Maricopa County Attorney's Office (@marcoattorney) June 8, 2026
BOS leaders Kate Brophy McGee and Debbie Lesko, chair and vice chair, said the criminal investigation was not some new development but the result of an incident that occurred months ago in March.
Per McGee and Lesko, Chief Information Officer Bryan Colby and one other, unnamed recorder’s office employee briefly removed a pre-tabulation ballot scanner from the Maricopa County Election and Tabulation Center (MCTEC) during the Tempe Jurisdictional Election. The two employees removed the scanner from MCTEC property for approximately 50 minutes before returning it.
The board also accused Colby of potentially jeopardizing the chain of custody by removing “a handful” of provisional ballots from MCTEC. However, the board said all ballots and envelopes were accounted for the day following the incident.
Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap contends the scanner belonged to his office, since recorder funds paid for it.
Following the brief removal of the scanner, the county decommissioned and replaced the equipment for $70,000.
Brophy McGee and Lesko issued their press release explaining the criminal investigation into Heap’s employees after Heap filed an emergency motion with the Arizona Superior Court over the weekend.
Heap petitioned the court to take stronger action against the board by stopping further actions like the deputy contacts with his staff that occurred over the weekend — which Heap characterized as retaliation — and for an enforcement action to require the board to adhere to the court’s previous ruling.
🚨 BREAKING: LEGAL UPDATE Yesterday, I filed an emergency motion with the Court after armed sheriff's deputies appeared at the homes of three Recorder's Office employees and informed them they were under criminal investigation.
— Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap (@azjustinheap) June 8, 2026
Last month, the Arizona Superior Court ordered the board to restore election authority and resources to Heap’s office. The board, which maintains it has “plenary authority” over elections administration, rejected this ruling and plans to appeal.
Last week, Heap asked the court to hold the board in contempt.
And now this week, Heap has accused the board of doing the very thing they have accused him of doing: criminalizing election workers.
“For weeks, the board has attempted to convince the public that I somehow intend to seek criminal penalties against election workers for performing their duties,” said Heap. “That claim is a lie, and they know it. Yet, while making those false accusations, the board was quietly pursuing criminal investigations and penalties against election workers employed by the recorder’s office.”
Heap said “meaningful cooperation” with the board of supervisors has been “impossible,” as evidenced by this latest development.
“While the Board publicly talks about collaboration, claims it wants to work together, and falsely accuses others of creating conflict, behind the scenes it bullies employees, interferes with the recorder’s operations, and now seeks to subject election workers to criminal investigations for attempting to lawfully do their job using equipment purchased and owned by the recorder’s Office,” said Heap.
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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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Maricopa County Supervisor Mark Stewart on Wednesday called for better communication and cooperation between county leadership and the Recorder’s Office after Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap asked a court to hold county officials in contempt. The request is the latest development in an ongoing dispute over election administration authority.
Stewart said the Recorder’s request for contempt findings may reflect a broader breakdown in communication and trust between county officials and the Recorder’s Office.
My statement on the Recorder's recent contempt filing.
— Mark Stewart Maricopa County Supervisor District 1 (@MarkStewart_AZ) June 3, 2026
“The Recorder’s request for contempt findings may be more aggressive than necessary, but it is likely a symptom of the breakdown in communication and trust that has been building for some time,” Stewart said.
Heap argued in an Application for Order to Show Cause that the Board continues to exercise powers that the court determined belong to the Recorder’s Office and has refused to return critical election personnel, systems, and resources to the Recorder’s office.
“The Court settled these issues 43 days ago,” Heap said. “Since then, the Board has refused to comply, continued exercising powers the Court ruled it does not possess, and even interfered with Recorder personnel carrying out their lawful duties at Recorder-operated election sites.”
🚨 MARICOPA ELECTIONS UPDATE
43 days ago, the Court ruled the Board of Supervisors was acting in violation of the law.
43 days later, they still haven't returned the IT staff, systems, and resources the Court ordered restored. Instead, they continued interfering in election… pic.twitter.com/whIXbRzWh6
— Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap (@azjustinheap) May 30, 2026
Stewart said county officials should accept the court’s ruling in the dispute and focus on implementing the decision ahead of Arizona’s upcoming primary election.
“My view is straightforward. We should accept the court’s ruling, implement it, and move forward,” Stewart said. “As we move forward with implementation, county leadership should carefully consider and prepare operational timelines to ensure a smooth transition ahead of the upcoming primary election.”
The statement follows continued legal disputes between the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors regarding election administration responsibilities. Stewart said his priority is supporting implementation of the court’s judgment and ensuring county staff have the guidance needed to administer elections effectively.
“The court has ruled. My priority is supporting the execution of the judgment and providing staff with the operational clarity they need to administer elections effectively,” Stewart said.
According to Stewart, he has previously encouraged direct discussions between county leadership and the Recorder’s Office in an effort to reach a negotiated resolution.
“I have worked to encourage direct discussions between county leadership and the Recorder to reach a negotiated solution,” Stewart said. “In my experience, most long-term solutions are achieved around a table, not in a courtroom.”
Stewart said those efforts did not result in a resolution and that the dispute has continued to escalate. While acknowledging the Recorder’s concerns, Stewart said he does not believe contempt proceedings are the best path forward.
“While I understand the Recorder’s frustration, I believe pursuing contempt findings is not helpful at this stage,” Stewart said. “The public is tired of litigation. Voters want their elected officials focused on administering elections, solving problems, and delivering results.”
Stewart reiterated his support for direct discussions between the parties and said long-term success will require rebuilding trust and improving communication between county officials.
“Litigation may resolve legal questions, but lasting solutions and successful operations require communication, trust, and a willingness to work together,” Stewart said.
The supervisor also expressed support for efforts by Supervisor Debbie Lesko to facilitate public discussions between county leadership and the Recorder’s Office.
“I am encouraged that my colleague, Debbie Lesko, is working to bring the parties together for direct public discussions,” Stewart said. “This is something I have been advocating for since early 2025.”
Lesko posted to X on May 29 criticizing Recorder Heap’s decision to request a contempt finding.
“I am once again disappointed that Recorder Heap turns to the court instead of meeting with the Board of Supervisors to resolve our differences in order to run the upcoming elections,” she wrote. “It’s been 9 days since our last invite to meet and we still haven’t heard back from him.”
Stewart concluded by stating that his focus remains on election administration and restoring working relationships between county officials.
“My responsibility is not to relitigate the past,” Stewart said. “My responsibility is to establish secure, transparent, and efficient elections while rebuilding the professional working relationships necessary for long-term success. The voters deserve nothing less.”
