Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap reinstated the voting rights of two dozen people after Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes sued him ahead of the November midterms.
“After successful mediation efforts, Recorder Heap will reinstate the voting status of citizens at issue in this case,” Mayes said on X. “It should not have taken litigation to make Justin Heap follow the law — that is his duty and the duty of all election officials.”
Mayes, a Democrat, accused Heap of blocking 25 people from voting in the Nov. 3 election. The voters had been suspected of being noncitizens, but an investigation found they were U.S. citizens eligible to vote.
Heap confirmed that he restored the voters to active status and mailed early
ballots to the voters who are on the active early voting list.
“This entire dispute could have been resolved weeks ago with the very verification ultimately presented to the Court,” Heap said in a written statement. “Our position never changed. We needed legally sufficient documentation of citizenship, we received it, and we immediately restored the voters.”
The Republican recorder agreed to reinstate the voters after appearing Oct. 23 in a virtual courtroom where a Maricopa County Superior Court judge encouraged the parties to settle their disagreement in mediation.
“The law is clear,” Karen Hartman-Tellez, a lawyer for Mayes’ office, told the judge. “The law demands that these voters be restored to eligibility immediately.”
America First Legal senior counsel James Rogers represented Heap and said his client was willing to restore the voters' rights if investigators provided evidence of citizenship. Rogers is a Republican who is running for a seat in the state Legislature.
“A quick way to perhaps just move this entire case is if they were to just provide that evidence to the recorder, and if it satisfies the statutory requirements, the recorder is happy to restore those voters to active status,” Rogers told the judge. “The problem is no one's provided that evidence to the recorder. They said that they found it, but they haven't provided it.”
Mayes said in a legal filing that 25 people were being wrongfully blocked from voting. Rogers said one person’s voting rights had already been restored, and the remaining number of people was 24.
Mayes' office said that person had provided proof of citizenship to the Recorder's Office in the morning before the hearing. The voting rights controversy stems from a months-long battle over alleged noncitizen voters in Maricopa County.
In March, Heap flagged more than 200 names he suspected to be noncitizens who were registered to vote. He used the federal SAVE Database to claim 60 noncitizens had voted illegally.
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell investigated the matter and found the number of noncitizen voters was much smaller. Maricopa County is home to some 2.5 million registered voters and is one of the biggest swing counties in America.
Eight noncitizens voted sporadically in elections from 2012 to 2025, the Republican county attorney said, and the remaining 52 were citizens.
Heap marked two dozen of those voters as ineligible to vote. Mayes and Mitchell both said the move was a violation of the voters' rights.
“We believe that demanding documentary proof of citizenship in this case for these voters who are already registered and were wrongfully put in the not eligible status in the first place turns the standard of proof on its head,” said Kara Karlson, a lawyer for Mayes’ office.
Democratic Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo slammed Heap on social media after Mayes announced the recorder would reinstate the voters' rights. Heap splits election oversight duties with the Board of Supervisors, and the two parties have fought bitterly since he took office.
"It’s unacceptable that it takes litigation to force Recorder Heap to do his job. Protecting eligible citizens' right to vote is his responsibility," Gallardo 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: Recorder restores rights for two dozen voters in Maricopa County
