Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap Releases Timeline on Battle with Board of Supervisors Over Election Authority

February 24, 2025

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap Releases Timeline on Battle with Board of Supervisors Over Election Authority

PHOENIX, AZ - Amid rising public outrage and increasing reports of misinformation being promulgated by Maricopa County Supervisors, Recorder Justin Heap addresses the future of elections and the urgent need for a new Shared Services Agreement (SSA) with the Board of Supervisors.

Background

Elections in Arizona require cooperation between the County Board of Supervisors and the County Recorder. Arizona's election laws, primarily found within A.R.S. Title 16, assign a limited number of duties exclusively to the Recorder or the Board. Most election functions, however, the law assigns to:

“The County Recorder or other officer in charge of elections…” (see ARS § 16-411, § 16-542, § 16-550, § 16-579.01, § 16-584, § 16-621, etc. emphasis added)

This legal vagueness is intentional, allowing flexibility for the Recorder and the Board in each county to negotiate a voluntary agreement clarifying which office will perform each function in a manner that best serves the needs of each county. This negotiated agreement is called a “Shared Services Agreement” or SSA.

For over 30 years (1985–2019), Maricopa County’s SSA gave the Recorder all election responsibilities. In 2019, Recorder Adrian Fontes and the Board agreed to split election duties with the Recorder handling early voting, while the Board managed in-person voting and tabulation. This division of duties was upheld throughout updates to the SSA signed in 2019, 2021, and 2023 with the Recorder managing early voting and the Board overseeing in-person voting and tabulation.

The Conflict

After losing re-election in a landslide during the 2024 primary election, outgoing Recorder Stephen Richer and a lame-duck Board majority quickly and secretly executed a new SSA on October 18, 2024, without consulting incoming officials. Effective December 10, 2024 — just weeks before the new Recorder and Board took office — this agreement:

Transferred nearly all the Recorder’s elections duties to the Board (e.g., mail-ballot envelope preparation, out-bound mailing of ballots, in-bound receipt of early ballots, early vote processing, pre-tabulation processing, and more), reducing the Recorder’s office to a minor role as the “signature verification department” on the Board’s behalf.
Reassigned 39 Recorder staff - 30 from IT, 5 from GIS (mapping precincts), and 4 from elections processing - to the Board, rendering the Recorder as the only elected office in Maricopa County without its own IT staff.
Shifted $5 million of the Recorder’s budget and control of critical systems (voter registration software, servers, etc.) to the Board.
Improperly rerouted public records requests and temporary election worker oversight to the Board, despite the Recorder’s statutory role.

This backroom, eleventh hour power grab represents a reckless overreach by unpopular, lame duck officials attempting to knee-cap incoming elected officials — effectively consolidating all elections duties under the Board. This Agreement would substantially hinder the Recorder’s ability to manage voter systems, oversee early voting, and improve election speed; even record public documents.

After consultation with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, Recorder Heap sent a letter to the Board Members, explaining that under Arizona Law a voluntary agreement signed by the previous Recorder and the previous Board is not binding or enforceable on the current Recorder and Board without their consent. Recorder Heap, therefore, formally terminated the lame duck SSA and requested the Board schedule an executive session with the Recorder to discuss the terms of a new SSA.

For the past eight weeks, Recorder Heap has tirelessly pursued every reasonable avenue to engage the Board of Supervisors in negotiating a new Shared Services Agreement. Through formal letters, emails, phone calls, and direct meeting requests, he has sought a collaborative solution to ensure efficient elections. Despite these good faith efforts, the Board has scheduled no meetings to address these critical issues, leaving Heap’s calls for dialogue unanswered and jeopardizing Maricopa County elections readiness.

The Stakes

Make no mistake, due to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors’ actions, Arizona’s most populous county, currently has no SSA in place — positioning the 2025 special elections and 2026 election for failure. Without an SSA, duties revert to Arizona Revised Statute, which virtually ensures overlap and inefficiency that harms Maricopa County voters.

Recorder Heap seeks a pragmatic, practical solution with the Board, an outcome that would avoid costly legal battles, but their silence threatens election readiness while the May 2025 election deadlines loom.

Recorder Heap’s Proposal

Maricopa County Recorder Heap’s requests are simple and reasonable:

Reinstate the 2021 SSA structure, with agreed upon modifications.
Return the 4 Early Vote Processing FTEs, 5 GIS technician FTEs, and a minimum of 15 IT FTEs to the Recorder’s office.
Reinstate the Recorder’s full authority over early voting, as per statute and past agreements.

This proposal is eminently reasonable. It awards precisely the same powers and duties afforded to all previous Recorders and ensures no more or less authority than every prior Recorder since 2018. This proposal simply returns the well-established relationship between the parties that existed prior to the lame duck, last-minute agreement created in 2024.

“Stephen Richer’s parting gift to the voters of Maricopa County, after suffering an embarrassing primary election defeat, was a punitive backroom agreement with the lame-duck Board majority designed to hamstring the office of the Recorder,” said Recorder Justin Heap. “For weeks, since before being sworn into office, I’ve sought reasonable, common-sense solutions with my fellow Republicans on the Board, only to be ignored. Maricopa County elections need a practical, workable SSA to ensure efficient, accurate elections; however, the Supervisors’ refusal to engage in honest dialogue risks a crisis in our upcoming elections.”

“With an election less than 90 days away,” Recorder Heap continued, “the Supervisors’ unwillingness to address these concerns will force me to take legal action against the Board to restore this office’s full authority, and deliver the results voters elected me to achieve. If the Board is unwilling to have good faith discussions with the Recorder regarding our statutorily shared election duties, then perhaps it is time to return all election responsibilities to the Recorder’s Office — something I readily welcome.”

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