A disagreement over who controls what functions of Maricopa County election process is is heating up. Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap is calling for urgent action in light of the fact that he believes the new Shared Services Agreement (SSA) with the Board of Supervisors is unenforceable.
Heap says he consulted with county attorneys on the matter “amid rising public outrage and increasing reports of misinformation being promulgated by Maricopa County Supervisors.”
Heap says the problem started after his predecessor, Stephen Richer, who lost re-election in a 2024 primary election landslide, “quickly and secretly executed a new SSA on October 18, 2024, between himself and “a lame-duck Board majority without consulting incoming officials.”
Heap claims that the new secretive deal:
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.
Heap says the “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.
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors’ chair Thomas Galvin disputes Heap’s version. “Conversations between the Board and its staff, and the Recorder and his staff, have been happening for weeks. Despite the factual errors in Recorder Heap’s statement, I don’t view this as a ‘battle,'” said Galvin in a press release.
“Shared service agreements in Maricopa County are frequently renegotiated, each time in consultation with our attorneys to ensure compliance with state law,” continued Galvin. “My colleagues and I happily look forward to further and continued dialogue to ensure a new SSA aligns with Arizona law and best practices in election administration.”
However, Heap said in a press release that he 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.”
Heap says his calls for dialogue have gone unanswered and that the situation is “jeopardizing Maricopa County elections readiness” because “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.”
Heap is seeking a “pragmatic, practical solution with the Board, an outcome that would avoid costly legal battles,” but the board of supervisors’ “silence threatens election readiness while the May 2025 election deadlines loom.”
“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,” alleges 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.”