The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Recorder Justin Heap have, once again, failed to come to a resolution on finalized election responsibilities.
Since taking office last January, Heap has petitioned the board unsuccessfully to restore elections duties to his office that were removed under the Shared Services Agreement (SSA) by the “lame duck” recorder and supervisors several months beforehand.
The disagreements between Heap and the board have escalated into legal action. Initial negotiations on a revised SSA fell through last spring and resulted in a lawsuit. That case remains ongoing.
Voters may have believed they were getting a fresh start with this new slate of supervisors and a new recorder, but this only appears to be true of the latter office. All but one member of the board of supervisors oppose reverting to an older SSA model.
Supervisor Mark Stewart, once again, urged the board to come to a better agreement with Heap on the SSA. Stewart published a statement critical of the outcome of the special board meeting earlier this week, in which Heap was ordered to come up with a report totaling thousands of pages in a matter of days and deliver a sworn defense on the administration of his office. Stewart says he supports a full restoration of election duties to the recorder’s office, as opposed to the current SSA on the table.
“Since January 2025, my position has been consistent: the most stable and legally sound path forward is to return to the previous SSA under the former Recorder as a baseline and negotiate improvements from there. This approach would have demonstrated good faith and begun discussion from a position of cooperation rather than conflict. Altering responsibilities directly following the election of Recorder Heap and his installation created avoidable conflict and uncertainty from the jump. For over a year now, I have yet to hear a satisfactory justification for making that decision in a lame duck session. During yesterday’s special meeting, the Board adopted a policy that establishes initial operational guardrails before an SSA is signed by both parties to ensure elections continue without interruption. Continuity is essential,” argued Stewart. “However, policy is not a substitute for a durable, mutually agreed-upon framework between independently elected offices.”
The newly proposed SSA restores some IT staff to the recorder’s office, creates a joint hiring arrangement of temporary recruiters for election worker hiring, and establishes a partnership arrangement with the recorder enabling access to certain Vote Center locations, troubleshooting for voting locations, and trainings for poll workers.
Vice Chair Debbie Lesko called the SSA “a fair offer” since it meets the recorder’s demands in the middle.
“All he has to do is say yes and this whole thing is solved,” said Lesko.
“Justin Heap likes to make a big deal about separation of powers, yet he repeatedly runs to the judicial branch to intervene in matters that should be worked out between elected officials,” said Supervisor Kate Brophy McGee. “Since Mr. Heap has not provided a serious response to our latest SSA offer, we felt it was important to state publicly and transparently how we will go about navigating some of most contentious issues between our respective offices so that we can ensure elections run smoothly and securely for Maricopa County voters.”
Throughout this month, Stewart has publicly urged his fellow supervisors and board leadership to find a pathway to resolution with Heap.
Although this month is the first time Stewart publicly challenged the board’s resolve to keep certain election duties from the recorder’s office, Stewart has been advocating behind the scenes to restore all duties to the recorder for well over a year.
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