Maricopa County Supervisors Tell Recorder to Reject Less Ballots With Bad Signatures

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors don’t appreciate the higher rejection rates coming from Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap’s new signature verification process.

The supervisors aired their concerns during the election canvass, which took place during last Wednesday’s formal board meeting.

The increased rate of signatures cured and rejected was due, in part, by the changes Heap made to the signature verification process. Additionally, there were 650,000 voters who decided to use the mailed ballot option that hadn’t done so previously — meaning those voters had only one signature on file for comparison.

Prior to Heap, a signature verifier would check, then double-check, a large batch of ballot signatures. Signatures of concern would be passed on for further review and possibly curing. Heap said this process would cause lengthy delays and holdups.

Heap implemented three levels of signature verification and required the verification team to be equally bipartisan. Rather than having one individual verify the signatures twice, the level one review requires a Republican and a Democrat — or at least two individuals of two different parties, with registered Independents thrown in the mix — to both review each ballot signature.

Additionally, Heap’s office clipped out the signatures and modified the viewable information for signature verifiers. All personal identifying information was removed, and verifiers won’t have to scroll up and down to see the signatures for comparison.

“By doing that, we’re adding another layer of protection that we’ve never had before because we’re removing all of that information, that now means the party observers that now come down are now actually free to walk around the room and observe the process,” said Heap.

Any disagreements or shared concerns on any given ballot signature would progress to level two, where a bipartisan team of more senior staff will review it based on additional training and voter signature records. Further disagreements or shared concerns would result in the ballot signature progressing to level three, where a certified election official will conduct an official review comparing the physical ballot with the contested signature against the full voter file.

Approximately 30,000 out of 700,000 ballots returned were flagged as questionable at level one. That number was halved after level two of review. By the end, it was determined 1,100 ballots had no signature and, altogether, approximately 6,000 didn’t respond to curing efforts and were rejected.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas Galvin questioned whether this was too high of a rejection rate.

“It seems your process would be to ferret out more signatures that would be considered to be bad signatures,” said Galvin.

Heap said the process doesn’t seek to invalidate ballots but gives every opportunity for verification.

“If a signature cannot make it through three levels of scrutiny and still we cannot find a signature that matches, I think that is a signature that needs to go to curing,” said Heap.

Supervisor Steve Gallardo said that, while he liked the bipartisanship of reviewers, he disliked how the process yielded a higher signature rejection rate.

“In my mind when you have multiple signatures, wouldn’t you have less number of signatures being disqualified than more?” asked Gallardo.

Heap said that this election cycle differed from the last, since ballots were sent out to all.

“I think the higher rejection rate is more based on the type of election we did this type around,” said Heap.

Supervisor Mark Stewart said the new verification system seemed to be more secure than the previous one. Heap responded that he wouldn’t assign judgment to the work of his predecessors. Supervisor Debbie Lesko also expressed an appreciation for the enhanced scrutiny within the new system.

Supervisor Kate Brophy McGee also expressed concern at the number of rejected ballots. Like Gallardo, she said she appreciated the bipartisanship. McGee asked Heap to reduce the rejection rate going forward, and to review the processes to see why rejection rates were so high this go around.

In the 2024 primary election, the county received over 113,000 early ballots on the day of the election. Per Heap, it took his predecessor’s team over two days to process those ballots for signature verification.

In this election, the county received over 116,000 early ballots on the day of the election. Under Heap, the recorder’s office processed those ballots in just under nine hours.

The recorder’s office says it worked in record time despite the major hiccup by the county temporarily losing several thousand ballots, and only found the morning of the curing deadline. To make up for lost time and ensure voters had their ballots counted, the recorder’s team called voters in need of curing every three hours until the deadline.

Watch the exchange between the supervisors and Heap below: