The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (MCBOS) held a special public meeting on Wednesday to discuss a Shared Services Agreement (SSA) drafted by the MCBOS to give Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap some of his job responsibilities back. The previous MCBOS, even though it was in lame duck status at the end of their term, executed an agreement with the previous recorder Stephen Richer in October that took away Heap’s IT department and other significant powers.
Until 2019, the recorder’s office handled all election responsibilities, not just early and mail-in voting. After then-recorder Adrian Fontes mishandled the 2018 election, he agreed with the MCBOS to turn over Election Day administration to the MCBOS. The October SSA took away even more authority from the recorder, and the new board appears reluctant to return much of the authority.
Heap issued a statement after the meeting. “The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors presentation today was one side of an ongoing negotiation,” he said. “Recorder Heap disagrees with some statements that were made; however, his focus remains on getting an elections agreement in place that best serves the voters of Maricopa County. The agreement put forth by the Board today represents the framework of a deal, but the devil is in the details, and those details still need to be ironed out.”
Grassroots activist Merissa Hamilton of EZAZ posted her disappointment with the draft SSA on X. “BOS SSA Creates Innefficiencies, Poor Voter Experience, Legal Non Compliance and Lacks Statutory Integrity,” she said. “I reviewed the SSA @ThomasGalvin published for the Special Meeting Agenda today, and it doubles down on every aspect of major maladministration that’s plagued Maricopa County over the last decade.”
https://x.com/merissahamilton/status/1915429875001024694
Hamilton told The Arizona Sun Times that the draft wasn’t much better than the hastily drafted SSA from October, since it still left much of the authority over elections with the MCBOS. “If they believe that 2024 was run, well why won’t they agree to the agreement in place at that time? Statutes should reign supreme over the SSA, they already delegate it properly. Other counties don’t have SSAs. They are trying to hold onto all the areas they’ve weaponized.”
In follow-up posts on X, she said that the SSA “makes clear” that the “goal” of Thomas Galvin, the chair of MCBOS, is “consolidating power away from his colleagues.” Another post said, “The SSA also doubles down on inefficiencies and breaks @thomasgalvin’s campaign promise to speed up election results by prohibiting the @recordersoffice @azjustinheap from implementing onsite early tabulation, which was legislated years ago.”
Hamilton said the SSA took away the recorder’s powers and contained “Insecure Election Processes.” She went over the numerous areas where the MCBOS was given authority over the recorder, such as by giving the MCBOS control over the recorder’s buildings.
One provision in the SSA would prevent the recorder from hiring his own legal counsel, instead delegating that authority to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. “This language is in conflict with ‘Board of Supervisors v. Woodall’ (120 Ariz. 379, 382, 1978), affirming the Recorder’s and BOS’ right to independent counsel for litigation,” she said.
Another provision “[c]ontinues broken chain of custody and removes Recorder’s statutory duty to oversee,” Hamilton said. The new language has the MCBOS share chain of custody of ballots.
Regarding the provision addressing MCBOS taking over the recorder’s IT department, Hamilton said, “The @RecordersOffice @azjustinheap will likely never get his own IT staff!” That part of the draft SSA said that a third party analysis would be conducted on the IT department, which was moved under MCBOS, making Heap the only county official without his own IT staff.
The SSA gives the MCBOS shared responsibility over voter records. Hamilton warned, “The primary purpose of Be Ballot Ready is for voters to see their voter record — which is a duty that solely belongs to the Recorder. … Giving joint authority could lead to data errors, security risks, voter confusion, or Recorder liability for non-compliance.”
She lamented that the SSA takes away hiring and firing authority from the recorder, which she warned could lead to problems, citing the temporary elections worker who was caught stealing a key FOB that could have reprogrammed all of Maricopa County’s 140 tabulators on Election Day.
Hamilton noted that while the recorder still has control over early voting, the SSA transfers the authority over ballot drop boxes to the MCBOS. Similarly, the SSA transfers significant authority over early voting locations to the MCBOS.
Another section “ensures they can continue their practice of picking and choosing which voters they want to count and which they want disenfranchised, regardless of the law!” Hamilton said the section allows the election director under MCBOS to choose what provisional ballots they want to reject. Hamilton observed, “This section doubles down on the stunt Maricopa County pulled to not count all the votes to ensure @AbrahamHamadeh couldn’t be AG after he rightfully won!”
She expressed concern that the recorder has no authority over voting machines or the third party ballot processing vendor. “This section BLOCKS @azjustinheap from having any say in the machine selection for in-person voting, even though the statutes give him authority,” Hamilton said. “It also doesn’t allow him authority over services like Runbeck to administer early mail voting.”
In February, Heap threatened to sue the MCBOS if they did not execute a new agreement and return his powers. MCBOS began negotiating a new agreement with Heap. MCBOS hired outside counsel, who testified at the meeting. However, Heap was not invited to participate at the meeting.
Supervisor Mark Stewart said, “I’ve been on record in our meetings talking about Maricopa being the pinnacle of what it looks like to have a well run election, right? We want to be the tip of the spear for the other counties in the state under the laws that are created by our legislature. And that’s the final thing that I’ll say here, is that we are required by statute. We are a ward of the state. And so when the legislature makes rules, we have to follow those. There’s no stepping outside those boundaries of what the legislature has defined for us to be responsible for.” He expressed his disappointment that Governor Katie Hobbs has vetoed several election integrity bills.
Emily Crager, a longtime attorney with the MCBOS who is now in private practice, said,
“The recorder included a background section in his email that contains some significant inaccuracies and a seeming misunderstanding about the purpose of the SSA.” She claimed that the Arizona Legislature had given those duties to the MCBOS, but she cited little state law, instead emphasizing the 2019 SSA that took away Fontes’ powers.
Stewart said about the move due to Fontes, “But the board actually took some of those services that we’re under and moved those underneath of the board, because there were some hiccups that were happening with regard to our election.”
Gallardo shot back and defended Fontes, calling it “corrective action,” but added, “It’s no one’s fault.”
Crager said Heap was “inaccurate in terms of Election Day voting locations. That’s under the board. Poll worker training is under the board. The early voting locations are an area that the statutes say that that’s something that the recorder may make a determination of.”
She said A.R.S. 16-551 lays out the statutory division of powers between the two agencies, but it only states that the MCBOS sets up the Election Boards. Most of that statute addresses the recorder’s responsibilities with early ballots and early voting.
Crager claimed, “The main change between the 2023 and the 2024 SSA related to … made it consistent with statute under 16-551 and the IT issue, those are the primary changes.”
She said there was a meeting on March 4 between some of the supervisors, Heap and their attorneys. Heap provided a new SSA, which she said combined various aspects of multiple SSAs, including the 2019 version, as well as new provisions, such as the ability to terminate them in 60 days.
She sent a letter on March 26 to Heap that said the “history of the EOAs and the SSA is, and most importantly, make clear that it would be impossible to return to a single elections department, because it would require, require undoing years of changes to staffing processes and procedures that have greatly improved election administration in the county.” She said two city elections were starting.
However, she didn’t explain how the concerns of switching the control back under Heap outweighed voters’ concerns about alleged corruption by the MCBOS handling elections. Galvin, a holdover from the previous MCBOS, was hostile to election integrity efforts, as was longtime Democratic Supervisor Steve Gallardo who is still on the MCBOS. Historically, recorders have often made “emergency” changes at the last minute before elections, whether from being ordered to by court injunctions or setting up emergency voting centers.
Crager reassured Supervisor Debbie Lesko that Heap and his staff still had “access” to IT and the databases to do his job, but didn’t explain why he should no longer have full control over IT and databases unlike other county officials.
Crager said on April 2, Heap sent a new draft SSA that did not address their previous offered draft. He gave them a deadline of April 7, and said if there was no agreement, he would file a lawsuit. His draft moved the IT department back under the recorder, as well as public records requests, the GIS team, and eliminated the title elections department as referring to MCBOS.
Lesko read a text message from Heap that sounded promising, suggesting his belief that they would be able to come to an agreement.
Zach Chira, the assistant county manager who previously served as chief of staff to former Supervisor Bill Gates, admitted, “I really want officials — deserve to — oversee their own staff and their own functions. So it’s highly abnormal to have to share staff … we feel it’s most prudent to have each department overseeing their own public records.” However, he said the two agencies could “collaborate” on early voting locations and election training.
Elections Director Scott Jarrett, who reports to the MCBOS, said the MCBOS has invited Heap to join them in “huddle meetings” every Tuesday and Thursday morning, as well as a weekly IT meeting to address issues for both offices.
Heap was criticized during the meeting for firing his attorney and bringing on a new one. However, Heap had been assigned Tim Eckstein of the Democratic firm Osborn Maledon by the county. Heap replaced him with Andrew Gould, a former Arizona Supreme Court judge and conservative candidate for attorney general.
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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.
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