When Maricopa County voters cast their ballots this year, they’ll select a new recorder. A once non-controversial position is now at the center of a tug of war over control of elections in the nation’s fourth-largest county.
The race pits first-time Democratic politician Tim Stringham against first-term Republican state Rep. Justin Heap, who unseated incumbent Republican Recorder Stephen Richer in the GOP primary in July.
The Recorder’s Office is in charge of voter registration and early voting in Maricopa County, which became a hotbed of election-related conspiracy theories in the wake of Donald Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden in 2020.
Heap stops short of claiming past elections were stolen, but he was recruited to run by state Sen. Jake Hoffman, one of Arizona’s so-called fake electors facing charges for allegedly attempting to undermine Biden’s win in 2020. And Heap has the endorsement of vocal election deniers, including Trump and U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake.
Heap has built his recorder campaign on allegations that many voters are not confident in the county’s elections, a message that was on full display at a rally for former President Trump in Glendale in August.
“Whether we wanted it to be or not, election integrity has become the civil rights issue of our time,” Heap said. “And, despite the clickbait smear pieces of the left-wing media, I am proud and ready to stand before you as a fearless defender of your God-given right to free and fair and honest elections.”
Stringham, the Democrat, unequivocally said past elections were not stolen, and said he hopes Richer’s loss — which came four years after Richer defeated Democratic Recorder Adrian Fontes — will convince others that the county’s elections are secure.
“The crowning of an achievement, right, of any elections official should be that they ran a fair election,” Stringham said. “And if you're now the second elections official in a row who oversaw an election in which you yourself lost, to me, that's pretty strong evidence that our elections are fair.”
Heap did not respond to multiple requests for comment and also skipped two debates against Stringham.
But Heap did debate Richer earlier this year, and laid out his vision for the office and tiptoed around questions about whether he believes past elections were stolen.
“I can say that I think the election rules were not followed, and that citizens are right to be skeptical and doubt that system,” Heap said. “I agree with them.”
He blasted Richer, claiming he hasn’t done enough to remove ineligible voters from the rolls, claims that both Richer and Stringham dispute by pointing to the fact that the number of registered voters has dropped in the county despite a growing population.
Heap also routinely criticized the current recorder for problems that were the responsibility of the county’s Board of Supervisors, not Richer, like Election Day ballot printer issues in 2022.
Stringham says he decided to run as a firewall to prevent an election denier from taking over the office, saying he has nothing against Richer but didn’t think he could win the GOP primary.
“I would ask Justin Heap, if you have a complaint about the office, be very clear. Are you referring to these lies told by Donald Trump and Kari Lake, or is there something else you would like us to address?” Stringham told PBS Arizona.
Stringham served six years in the Army as a counterinsurgency specialist before earning a law degree and practicing human rights law around the world with the Navy. He says leading large teams in complex operations prepared him to supervise the hundreds of employees who work for the recorder.
He says events like Jan. 6 first made him think about returning home to fight a different kind of battle in his own backyard.
“That's a key part of my stump speech is telling people how it felt that day to think ‘Oh, like I'm an American and I'm going to go save the world and make it safe for democracy,’” he said.
And, unlike Heap, Stringham isn’t looking to make major changes to the way Richer ran the office. He said he wants to keep an open mind in order to find ways to improve the office’s processes and ensure the security of future elections.
“If somebody has a complaint, is it just the fact that it's 2.4 million people and some mistakes happen, or is this really something that we can fix going forward?” he said. “I always challenge everybody, right, to be a little calm before they fix things.”
But Heap said a more aggressive approach is needed, criticizing Richer for being too dismissive of criticism levied against his office.
“It's the way our elected officials poorly run our elections and then dismiss and disrespect the voters that leads voters to have a lack of confidence. It's not the results,” he said during a debate in June.
Stringham said he doesn’t want to dismiss voter concerns but also doesn’t want to amplify baseless conspiracy theories.
“We don't want to get mad at people for challenging things,” he said. “You just want them to be thoughtful and honest about it.”
Heap has an advantage in Maricopa County, where Republicans outnumber Democrats by around 160,000 voters.
But recent polling by Noble Predictive Insights shows Stringham with a 4% lead in the race, though pollster Mike Noble cautioned that 22% of respondents were still undecided in early September, including many of the county’s over 860,000 independents.
“Thirty-five percent of independents were undecided in that race, and 32% of moderates were not sure who they would vote for,” Noble said. “So It's kind of the groups you would expect … that ultimately is going to decide who wins or loses that race.”
That could give Stringham an edge.
Noble said 76% of independents do not believe the 2020 election was stolen.
