After months of unsuccessfully attempting to recover key parts of his office back from the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (MCBOS), Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap, who was elected on an election integrity platform last year, filed a lawsuit against the MCBOS. Represented by America First Legal (AFL), he demanded back control over early voting, ballot drop boxes, his IT department, and the ability to speed up ballot tabulation, areas that were negotiated away from him last fall by previous recorder Stephen Richer, an election fraud denier.
“The Board of Supervisors’ bad faith tactics in the SSA negotiation, compounded by their unanimous May 19 budget vote to cement the Board’s seizure of my statutory duties through the budget process is deeply disappointing, forcing us to take this issue to court,” Heap said in a statement. “Despite their repeated misinformation and gaslighting of the public on these issues, defending the civil right to free, fair, and honest elections for every Maricopa County voter isn’t simply my job as County Recorder, it’s the right thing to do and a mission I’m fully committed to achieving.”
TODAY I SUED MARICOPA COUNTY
Today, I instructed my legal counsel, @America1stLegal, to file a lawsuit against the MCBOS in order to:
1) Resolve the ongoing dispute over the state’s largest election system
2) Reclaim the legal authority that Supervisor Galvin attempted to… pic.twitter.com/iL57zoHtiz
— Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap (@azjustinheap) June 12, 2025
Maricopa County Supervisor Debbie Lesko responded to Heap on X, “@azjustinheap, stop wasting taxpayer $ on lawyers and sit down and negotiate!”
EZAZ Co-President Merissa Hamilton, who has been heavily involved with the tussle, responded to Lesko, placing the blame on MCBOS Chair Thomas Galvin. “Respectfully, @DebbieLesko!” she said. “If you read the lawsuit, you’ll see that @azjustinheap tried, and you and the rest of the BOS ignored his offers. Maybe your staffers aren’t doing their jobs??? Take it up with @ThomasGalvin, whom you keep rubber-stamping to be a tyrant! He caused this issue!”
Lesko doubled down, praising Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell for sending a cease and desist letter to AFL. “Looks like Recorder @azjustinheap did indeed go rogue. Thank you for standing up for the law @Rachel1Mitchell!” she posted on X.
The letter claimed that AFL did not have statutory authority to represent Heap. However, Jennifer Wright, an election attorney who has represented Kari Lake and Abe Hamadeh, pointed out that the three top Democratic officials in the state have used the progressive group States United for assistance. Like AFL, States United did not use taxpayer funding.
States United performed legal work for Governor Katie Hobbs, Attorney General Kris Mayes, and training for Secretary of State Adrian Fontes. For Mayes, States United drafted a memo outlining how to draft an indictment of the alternate electoral slate for Trump. The memo, which was posted at The Daily Signal, was clearly stamped “Attorney-Client Privilege” and “Attorney Work Product.”
“Spoiler alert: @America1stLegal is not being paid by @azjustinheap or @maricopacounty – therefore @Rachel1Mitchell’s “approval”/“authorization” is not required,” Wright said in response to the reporter who posted about it. “Did @katiehobbs get approval from @GeneralBrnovich to be represented by @statesunited when she was SOS, @JenAFifield?”
The reporter, Jen Fifield of Votebeat, responded and asked Wright if it violated the “Zuckerbucks ban on private donations for elections,” a new state law. Wright clarified, “I’ve never stated that the Zuckerbucks law applies to legal representation.”
AFL’s attorney James Rogers provided The Arizona Sun Times with a memo of legal analysis after the dispute arose Friday on X. He cited multiple cases in Arizona which held that county officials involved in litigation with other county officials may select their own legal counse. “The Maricopa County Recorder is free to choose his own counsel when engaged in litigation against the Board of Supervisors,” AFL said, citing Maricopa County v. Biatt. “This is what Arizona courts have consistently held for decades. As the Court of Appeals explained, any other result would leave the recorder at the complete mercy of those desirous of improperly usurping his functions.”
That court also ordered the MCBOS to pay the recorder’s attorney’s fees. Similar to the situation here, “The Court of Appeals explained that “[t]o hold otherwise would leave the recorder at the complete mercy of those desirous of improperly usurping his functions.”
Heap provided a fact sheet laying out the circumstances. His final draft of a Shared Services Agreement (SSA) in the failed negotiations, where he was represented by former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Andrew Gould, “represent[ed] the most secure and lawful manner of administering the shared election responsibilities required under current Arizona law.”
In addition to returning all of early voting under his control, drop box voting, and speeding up election results by introducing onsite early ballot tabulation on Election Day, the draft SSA would add election integrity measures. It would provide him with a shared role in determining election equipment and strengthen chain of custody policies and procedures for early voting and voter registration, two areas that have been a concern for voters.
Heap’s complaint, which cited numerous state laws he believed were broken, began by stating that the MCBOS “is engaged in an unlawful attempt to seize near-total control over the administration of elections and to compel the County Recorder to accept the usurpation of his statutory authority.” He said MCBOS will not provide him the funding to run his office unless he capitulates.
Citing state laws, he said, “However, Arizona’s statutes are clear: the Legislature has delegated to the Recorder, and not to the Board of Supervisors, numerous responsibilities for election administration, and the Board of Supervisors has a mandatory duty to fund the Recorder’s conduct of his duties.”
The complaint warned, “Until this dispute is resolved, elections in Maricopa County will be conducted in violation of the law.”
Heap outlined how the conflict arose, over interpreting statutes. “[I]n more than a hundred places, Arizona’s election statutes delegate presumptive authority to either the county recorder or the board of supervisors but allow for a particular county’s board of supervisors and recorder to re-allocate those responsibilities to an ‘other officer in charge of elections.’”
He noted that until 2018, when then-Recorder Adrian Fontes botched an election, resulting in voters booting him out of office, the recorder had control over not just all of early voting, but Election Day voting. The MCBOS was not involved in elections. The SSA signed last fall, giving even more of the recorder’s duties to the MCBOS, was negotiated by Richer and supervisors. Three out of the five supervisors, like Richer, were lame ducks who would not be returning to office this year.
Heap criticized the agreement, “The timing of the 2024 SSA’s effective date appears to have been an effort to undermine voters’ desire for improvements in the way early voting was administered, which they expressed by electing a new recorder.”
He explained why the 2024 SSA was illegal. “First, it was unenforceable because a prior elected official cannot bind his successor,” he said. “Second, the 2024 SSA violated Recorder Heap’s statutory duties under Arizona’s election statutes.” He noted that the MCBOS didn’t dispute that he had the authority to reject the 2024 SSA.
Due to the lack of IT staff, “the Recorder’s Office cannot perform batch comparisons with federal databases and cannot upgrade the registration database to pull and sort data to find mistakes in voter registrations.” He said his requests for IT assistance from the MCBOS have resulted in 42 support tickets that are 6 weeks or older, and in total, failing to close almost half of his requests this year. Additionally, the “failure to prioritize support tickets from the Recorder’s Office appears to be intentional.”
Heap said it was “a punitive measure against the Recorder,” pointing out that every other county official has their own IT staff.
Even though “the County Recorder has exclusive authority over voter registration and the maintenance of the voter rolls and the Active Early Voting List,” Heap said he has been deprived of access to them, “prevent[ing] the lawful execution of his exclusive statutory responsibilities.”
He said the MCBOS took over control of the election websites, BeBallotReady.com and BeBallot.Vote, despite the fact they were created by the recorder’s office. “Virtually all of the functionalities provided by BeBallotReady relate to responsibilities statutorily entrusted to the Recorder, such as voter registration, mail-in ballot requests, early voting locations, tracking of the status of early ballot and signature verification, and sending electronic notices about voters’ early ballot status.”
The complaint went over how the MCBOS ignored his proposed SSA and “good faith negotiations.” As a result, “his final recourse is to file this special action to ensure that he is able to perform the duties of his office.”
Heap said what he intends to do if the MCBOS does not return parts of his office, including the internally developed software systems ERO and VRA. “If the BOS does not relinquish control of ERO and VRAS to the Recorder, the Recorder will be obligated to create equivalent systems under his control so that he may fulfill his statutory duties regarding voter registration and maintenance of the voter rolls and the Active Early Voting List.”
Heap expressed his concern, “The potential for voter disenfranchisement is a critical concern if the Court does not act.” He warned, “Make no mistake, due to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors’ chaotic and reckless actions, Arizona’s most populous county currently has no SSA in place — jeopardizing election readiness and security, and positioning the 2025 special elections and 2026 election for failure and a repeat of the chaos that has seemingly become the norm for Maricopa County in recent elections.”
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to .
Photo “Justin Heap” by Gage Skidmore CC2.0.
The post Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap, an Election Integrity Champion, Sues Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Over Usurping His Office first appeared on The Arizona Sun Times.