The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to countersue Recorder Justin Heap, days after he first took the board to court over control of the county’s elections.
The GOP-controlled board’s maneuver escalates an ongoing battle between Heap and supervisors since Heap took office in January. The sides had engaged in contentious negotiations over a shared services agreement that is supposed to outline how they cooperate to run elections, which are administered by both the recorder and board under state law.
Heap, who’s also Republican, argues the board took away powers given to the recorder’s office, a claim Board Chair Thomas Galvin called “frivolous.”
Heap’s case, Galvin said, “threatens to harm our voters and harm our election system.”
“Now we are compelled to file a counterclaim to end this once and for all,” Galvin added. “We don't start fights at the Board of Supervisors, but we finish them, and we're going to see this through, because the voters deserve an answer here.”
The counterclaim will ask a judge to decide how the board and Heap should interact ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
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The election for the board of the Salt River Project is normally very quiet. It's an off-cycle election in the middle of April with an archaic voting model that allows only some property owners to even vote.
