The officials who run elections in one of America’s biggest swing counties were supposed to have settled their differences.
At this rate, they’ll be fighting and pointing fingers all the way to Election Day.
In the past several weeks, Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap, a Republican, called the FBI on election workers, was mocked for mysteriously claiming mail-in ballots would be routed through San Diego and raised doubts that county leaders could smoothly transition their equipment in time for Election Day.
Members of Heap’s own party say he is setting the stage for a “blame game” if there are problems on Nov. 3, while a top Heap aide said that’s “ridiculous.”
“He just wants to lay the groundwork to blame it on the Board of Supervisors,” Debbie
Lesko, the Republican vice chair of the board, told The Arizona Republic.
It’s the latest election twist in Maricopa County, home to the lion’s share of Arizona voters. The county has been a hotbed for President Donald Trump’s election fraud conspiracy theories for the better half of a decade.
“Maricopa is a very, very dishonest county,” Trump said Oct. 5, after Heap announced that a vendor had mistakenly mailed 3,000 ballots before early voting began Oct. 7. (Heap’s allies blamed the supervisors for approving the vendor).
Under state law, Maricopa County must run its elections through a bifurcated process overseen by two elected offices. They have been at odds since Heap won in 2024.
Heap is in charge of voter registration and early voting, while the GOP-majority Board of Supervisors handles Election Day voting and tabulates the ballots.
With the help of a lawyer from America First Legal, a nonprofit law firm co-founded by top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, Heap sued for more power over Maricopa County elections. He beat the board at the Arizona Supreme Court.
The two parties sounded optimistic in July when they reached an agreement for running elections, but the deal did not solve all their problems.
The October early voting period has been marked by social media mudslinging and a call to federal authorities.
“The politics around this have really heated up, and it's bothersome,” Republican Maricopa County Board of Supervisors chair Kate Brophy McGee said. “I don't think it's the board. I think it's Mr. Heap and his allies.”
The latest drama started at a Board of Supervisors meeting in late September, where Heap claimed mail-in ballots would be delayed this year because the U.S. Postal Service had closed a facility and would route the mail through San Diego.
That’s wrong, USPS spokesperson Sherry Patterson said in an email. No facilities had been closed and the Postal Service had plenty of capacity to handle the ballots locally.
“He has the credibility of a used car salesman,” Republican Supervisor Thomas Galvin quipped on X.
"It’s impossible to predict what's the next ridiculous stunt that Justin Heap and his team of weirdos is going to cook up, but we know they're trying to plan something," Galvin later told The Republic.
Heap also warned that a plan to transition emergency voting equipment may hit a snag the night before the election. Those problems would be “mostly on the board side of the equation,” he predicted.
At that September meeting, supervisors emphasized their desire to work collaboratively with Heap. Lesko asked him to stop bad-mouthing them at local Republican meetings.
“I wish the board Godspeed. Both of us want the other one to be successful, I think,” Heap said.
A few weeks later, when a late-night video clip of election workers went viral, Heap’s staff called the FBI. The workers were in the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, a facility overseen by the supervisors.
Shelby Busch Robinson, the Republican activist who once said she “would lynch” former GOP Recorder Stephen Richer, contacted Heap’s office, which in turn alerted the FBI, KJZZ reported.
“Maricopa has a lot to answer for,” Busch Robinson said in an interview on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s “War Room.”
In the end, investigators found no wrongdoing.
Brophy McGee called the whole incident “disgusting” and accused the recorder of adding to the “climate of fear” that election workers face.
“He wanted to find something nefarious going on and doxxed our employees, which is unforgivable,” she said.
The Maricopa County Elections Department, overseen by the board, declined to comment.
“He’s set it up so that they are the fall guy,” said Brian Murray, the former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party and former Lesko adviser.
Heap’s chief of staff, Sam Stone, seemed to find the idea that the recorder’s office is undermining the board so preposterous that he hung up when The Republic reached him by telephone Oct. 19.
“I don't give interviews, and I think that's entirely ridiculous. And we know perfectly well who you're talking to. Thanks, have a great day,” Stone said.
A spokesperson for the recorder's office did not respond to a request for comment.
Heap's position overseeing elections has some voters on edge, especially because the recorder has refused to say whether the 2020 election was legitimate and has ties to some of the lawyers who tried to overturn Trump’s loss.
“I don't trust Heap at all because he is an election denier,” Chandler resident Denise McDougall said Oct. 17 at a “No Kings” protest.
Despite the back-and-forth between Heap and the board, McDougall said she was able to vote without a problem. She used the county’s ballot tracking service to make sure her early vote was counted.
“I'm hopeful that because everything went smoothly for me, that it will go smoothly for others,” she said.
Stephanie Murray covers national politics and the Trump administration for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. She co-hosts “The Gaggle,” The Republic’s weekly politics podcast. Reach her at stephanie.murray@usatodayco.com, on X and TikTok @stephanie_murr and on Instagram @stephaniemurray.news.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Maricopa County election 'blame game' heats up before midterm election
