Maricopa County Board of Supervisors ask judge to pause ruling in election fight with recorder

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors wants a judge to press pause on a ruling ordering them to hand information technology systems and certain election-related duties back to the county recorder. But not all supervisors agree on how long that pause should last.

Last month, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney found the supervisors illegally moved Recorder Justin Heap’s IT team under the board’s supervision. Blaney also provided some clarity on which responsibilities belong to the board and which fall to the recorder under Arizona’s complicated election system, which charges both offices with jointly running elections.

But the board quickly voted to ask Blaney to stay the order, arguing the order would result in chaos and confusion ahead of the upcoming local and primary elections throughout the county.

Supervisor Mark Stewart, the only member of the board to vote against that direction, filed his own request with the court, asking Blaney to temporarily pause his order so the supervisors and recorder can meet in mediation to clear up any remaining issues.

The board’s argument

The board’s attorney argued that transferring the IT staff will be difficult to split quickly, because it includes tools used by both the recorder and the board to administer upcoming elections.

“If deprivation of custody and control over the IT systems constitutes an irreparable injury to the affected county officer, then the Board’s compelled surrender of VRAS/ERO and related functionalities to the Recorder’s exclusive control would inflict a corresponding, mirror-image harm on the Board,” attorney Kory Langhofer wrote.

In his order, Blaney did not require the board to split the IT system, which the board first voted to consolidate under its control in 2024, months before Heap took office.

The board could also provide Heap with the funding to hire his own staff and build his own IT tools, the judge found.

But that, too, is problematic, the board argued, because it would result in tens of millions in new costs for the county and would take at least a year to complete.

According to the filing, an IT “overhaul” for the Maricopa County treasurer started in 2014 cost $51.9 million and is still ongoing. A similar project for the county assessor that began the same year cost $29.1 million and was completed in 2024.

“Such a massive outlay would upend Maricopa County’s already pending budget, and these financial dislocations cannot be easily undone should the injunction later be vacated,” Langhofer wrote.

However, those expenditures also appear to back up Blaney, who argued that the fact that every other elected office in the county has its own IT staff proves the board was wrong to remove Heap’s in the first place.

“The board’s decision to fund separate IT departments for every other elected county officer while stripping the recorder of his own IT department strongly suggests that an independent IT department is a necessary expense of county office,” the judge wrote in his decision.

Election duty

Arizona law generally assigns election tasks, like voter registration or overseeing Election Day voting, to a board of supervisors or county recorder.

But other times, they assign responsibilities to the “recorder or other officer in charge of elections” or the “board of supervisors or other officer in charge of elections.”

To clear up that confusion, Blaney found that the elected officials actually named in a specific law are the ones who hold those responsibilities. So, any responsibility delegated to the “recorder or other officer in charge of elections” belongs to the recorder, unless the board and recorder mutually agree to change that.

But Langhofer also argued that Blaney’s order, far from providing clarity over election duties, further muddied the waters as the county is in the process of overseeing ongoing elections in Tempe and Guadalupe.

For instance, state law lets local governments delegate election administration to the board of supervisors. Under that law, the board is administering a local fire district election this month after signing an agreement with Tempe and Guadalupe.

Under that agreement, the board's election director was charged with operating a ballot replacement center, even though state law gives that duty for all elections to “the county recorder or other officer in charge of elections.”

“The injunction hence prohibits the Elections Department from operating a key component of a jurisdictional election that the Board is already contractually obligated to run, and preparations for that election already are underway,” according to the board of supervisors’ court filing.

In an email to the board, the Heap’s office indicated it is willing to work with the board to resolve the issue, though it rejected the supervisor’s claim that it can use agreements with cities and towns to take over responsibilities reserved for the recorder.

“This is (sic) position is not supported under Arizona Law, and flies directly in the face of the Court’s Ruling that the intergovernmental agreements cannot override state laws,” Sam Stone, Heap’s chief of staff, wrote in an April 27 email to the Maricopa County Elections Department.

However, the board also argued a handful of other issues could result from Blaney’s ruling, including problems tracking chain of custody for ballots.

“I do not believe it would be possible to successfully administer elections in Maricopa County if the Court’s injunction is given immediate effect,” Scott Jarrett, the board’s elections director, wrote in a declaration to the court.

Mediation

Langhofer asked the court to pause its ruling for at least 30 days while the board prepares to appeal the case to a higher court.

But Stewart, who is represented by a separate attorney, argued that isn’t necessary.

Instead, he asked the court to force both sides to come to the table to resolve their issues – even though Heap and the board have been fighting over election-related issues for well over a year since Heap took office in January 2025.

“Previous efforts at mediation have failed despite the parties all claiming a willingness to mediate based upon timing, preconditions and disagreement over a mediator,” Stewart wrote.

He asked Blaney to appoint a mediator within the next two weeks.