In a recent debate, candidates for Maricopa County recorder focused almost exclusively on the recorder’s role as an election official — ignoring a substantial portion of the recorder’s job.
As the name suggests, the Maricopa County recorder is in charge of recording an array of important documents for county residents, including property deeds and tax liens.
According to the Recorder’s Office, it services thousands of customers each day and records around 1 million documents each year.
Despite that, only incumbent Recorder Stephen Richer discussed that part of the job during a debate on Monday with Rep. Justin Heap and Don Hiatt, the two Republicans seeking to unseat Richer in the GOP primary.
Richer, who took office in 2021, used his closing statement to highlight some of his office’s accomplishments that have nothing to do with elections.
“Well since we didn’t hit document recording, I’ll just point out two things that are emblematic of my time over the past three-and-a-half years,” Richer said. “We created Maricopa Title Alert, a system that did not exist previously, a system that allows users to protect against deed fraud.”
Richer said his office also relaunched a kiosk system to record documents and is working on a new website to give residents access to more of the 55 million documents on record with the office.
The Maricopa County Recorder is also responsible for voter registration, maintaining voter files and overseeing early voting — topics that dominated the conversation during the debate.
