PHOENIX — After a year and a half of legal wrangling, the battle over who controls early voting in Maricopa County is over.
The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday – just one week before Arizona’s primary – to approve a settlement with Recorder Justin Heap.
The two sides have been locked in a legal battle since shortly after Heap took office in January 2025 over technology funding and control of early voting. The terms of the settlement were negotiated over the last week with a court-appointed mediator, Kory Langhofer, the board's attorney, said during Tuesday's meeting.
Do you have a concern in your community or a news tip? We want to hear from you!
Connect with us: share@abc15.com
The deal essentially creates two separate election systems in the county: one for early voting overseen by the recorder and another for Election Day and emergency voting under the board.
Heap’s office will get equipment and staff for early voting, Langhofer said during the meeting.
The board also voted to allocate funding and staff to the Recorder's Office to build an IT system. Heap’s office will use the county’s existing system until it is complete.
State law divides election responsibilities between recorders and county supervisors, but the wording of those statutes is often unclear, assigning duties to the “recorder or other officer in charge of elections.”
To avoid confusion, county boards of supervisors and recorders usually specify who handles what in a shared-services agreement. After he took office last year, Heap terminated the agreement the board signed with his predecessor, which had moved the recorder’s IT department to the county.
Heap has argued that duties delegated to the “recorder or other officer in charge of elections” fall under his purview, and the Arizona Supreme Court sided with him last week, saying his interpretation was likely to prevail in court.
The mediator, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury, will decide on any future disputes over election administration. Any appeals of his decisions will go directly to the Arizona Supreme Court.
Want more news in your community? Add ABC15 as a preferred source on Google below:
