After a monthslong delay, the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office referred hundreds of alleged noncitizens the office found on the voter rolls to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office for further investigation.
In February, Recorder Justin Heap announced his office used the federal SAVE database to identify 137 suspected noncitizens registered to vote in Maricopa County, including 60 who have voted in past elections. That database, a decades-old tool designed to check immigration status and eligibility for government programs, was overhauled by the Trump administration to check voter status.
Heap’s office ultimately identified a total of 207 suspected noncitizens on Maricopa County’s voter rolls.
But he did not refer those people to the attorney general for investigation, even though a state law requires the county recorder to “notify the county attorney and attorney general for possible investigation” when it discovers non-citizen voters.
That changed on Friday, when he referred the case to the Attorney General’s Office, Votebeat reported.
Heap sent the case to Mayes nearly two months after her top prosecutor emailed the recorder asking for the information.
“As Arizona's primary prosecutor for election matters, I am writing to request that you send any referrals to the Attorney General's Office as soon as possible,” Criminal Division Chief Nick Klingerman wrote on March 2.
Klingerman followed that up with an April 2 letter citing the state law requiring the recorder to refer cases involving non-citizen voters to both the county attorney and attorney general.
“This requirement is not discretionary, and failure to follow it undermines the legally prescribed process for voter-eligibility investigations,” Klingerman wrote.
Recorder’s response
Heap initially resisted Klingerman’s demand, though he did refer the case to Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell for investigation in March.
In an April 10 letter, he said that’s because he had not actually canceled voter registrations for any of the suspected noncitizens on the rolls.
And the law Klingerman cited states “the county recorder shall cancel the registration” when it identifies noncitizens on the rolls, before referring the case to prosecutors for investigation.
“Because no cancellations have occurred, A.R.S. § 16-165(A)(10), which you cite, does not apply, and the statutory trigger for referral to the Attorney General’s Office has not been met,” Heap wrote.
Instead, the recorder placed them into “a ‘Not Eligible' status” to give any voters wrongly identified as noncitizens time to provide proof of citizenship.
“Because these individuals are associated with the well-documented MVD-related issue, it is important to provide every reasonable opportunity to verify citizenship before initiating cancellation,” Heap wrote, referring to the well-documented error discovered in 2024 that called into question the voter registration of hundreds of thousands of Arizonans.
But Klingerman argued Heap had no legal authority to place those voters on “indefinite suspension.” That’s because the law clearly directs county recorders to cancel a voter’s registration if they do not provide proof of citizenship within 35 days.
And that deadline has passed, he argued.
“Your announcements on February 13, 2026, clearly explained that you sent the statutorily-required notice months ago, thus triggering the referral requirements of the law,” Klingerman wrote.
‘Playing politics’
Mayes, a Democrat, accused Heap, a Republican, of holding onto the records for political reasons.
“So, you know, the county recorder was playing politics, obviously,” Mayes said. “That's really not appropriate. He needed to be following the law, and it's not a great sign that he was not willing to follow the law for as long as he did.”
In the April 10 letter, Heap denied engaging in “gamesmanship.”
“The Recorder’s Office has acted deliberately and in good faith to follow the process established by the Legislature and reflected in the (Election Procedures Manual),” Heap wrote. “That process is designed to protect both election integrity and the due process rights of affected voters. Premature referrals outside of that framework would undermine both.”
Klingerman argued the referrals were not premature given that Heap had announced in February his intent to send the cases out for investigation and had already referred the investigation to Mitchell.
Mayes said she has spoken with Mitchell multiple times about the parallel investigations.
“We're in good communication with each other about it, and I think we'll probably be in communication hopefully before we both release results,” Mayes said.
The back-and-forth between Mayes and Heap is playing out as Republicans nationwide defend the use of tools like SAVE database to weed out non-citizen voting, which remains exceedingly rare in the U.S.
Democrats, meanwhile, have expressed concerns about the use of the tool, pointing to reporting by ProPublica and NPR showing the database has a history of erroneously flagging some U.S. citizens as noncitizens.
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