Top Maricopa County official subpoenas Recorder's Office staff over 'disenfranchisement' claims

The chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors subpoenaed staffers from County Recorder Justin Heap’s office to clear up contradictory claims they’ve made in court and public meetings alleging some voters were disenfranchised in past elections.

The subpoenas are the latest salvo in a now yearlong feud between the supervisors and the recorder over control of the county’s elections that is currently playing out in Maricopa County Superior Court after Heap filed a lawsuit last summer.

Board Chairwoman Kate Brophy McGee, a Republican, signed three subpoenas on Monday calling on Heap’s chief of staff Sam Stone and two other staffers to testify before the board next week.

That came a week after top officials in the Recorder’s Office testified that changes to state law and a lack of resources led to voter disenfranchisement in recent election cycles.

In a court hearing on Jan. 26, Stone said voter disenfranchisement “is happening now.”

“Based on the number of provisionals that are not processed by the end of each election, we estimate that it is between one and several hundred in each election,” Stone said.

However, Heap, also a Republican, appeared to contradict those claims a few days later at a meeting with the Board.

Provisional ballots

Stone made the comments after being asked about the recorder’s request that the county purchase a sorting machine to help it process provisional ballots more quickly.

Those provisional ballots are given to voters who can’t be immediately verified at the polls for a variety of reasons, including not providing valid identification. In Arizona, voters must provide proof of citizenship to vote a “full ballot,” which includes state and local elections.

Without that proof, a voter is still allowed to vote a “federal only” ballot that includes races for federal offices, like Congress or the U.S. Senate.

Janine Petty, the recorder’s senior director of voter registration, testified that the county did not have enough time in the last election to process all provisional ballots.

A recent state law allows voters to become eligible to vote a full ballot by providing identification up until 7 p.m. on election night. That changed the election timeline, and because there was less time, Petty said some voters who provided information to vote full ballots only had their federal-race votes counted.

“From what I was told last cycle, there was no time to go back through the (manual process) and try to find those ballots and cure them, so they wouldn't have to be duplicated as federal only battle ballots, but instead be upgraded to full ballots,” Petty told the court.

When asked how many voters were disenfranchised due to that issue, Petty said she did not have an exact figure.

“I'm guessing it's between, somewhere around 100, maybe more,” she said. “But as we go into this next election cycle, that number could grow as well.”

Petty said purchasing the machine requested by the Recorder’s Office, called an Agilis, would help speed up the process in the future.

Heap’s response

Two days after that court hearing, Heap appeared before the Board of Supervisors to present his budget request for the year. That included asking the board for $595,000 for the Agilis machine to address the issue with counting provisional ballots.

Brophy McGee, the board chair, questioned why the recorder never told the board the machine was needed to prevent disenfranchisement of voters.

“The first that I heard about it was a statement that was made by one of your staff in the court testimony on Monday — that because we didn't fund this in last year's budget request, voters were disenfranchised,” Brophy McGee said.

Kate Brophy McGee

County Manager Jen Pokorski said Heap had requested the machine last year but that the request was denied due to concerns about ongoing maintenance costs and a lack of space to house the machine.

“My recollection and the Office of Budget's recollection is there was no mention that not providing the machine would cause any disenfranchisement of voters,” Pokorski said.

Heap then denied that any voters have been disenfranchised since he took office in January 2025, walking back the comments made by Stone and Petty in court.

“We stated that we want this machine to make sure that we don't disenfranchise voters,” Heap said. “We didn't say that any voters had been disenfranchised since I took office in the administration.”

Heap said the voters may have been disenfranchised under previous recorders and suggested the board talk to his predecessor, former Republican Recorder Stephen Richer.

Richer told KJZZ that he does not believe anyone was disenfranchised during his tenure as recorder.

The subpoenas

Brophy McGee issued subpoenas to Stone, Petty and Bryan Colby, Heap’s chief information officer, who she said provided contradictory testimony about the county’s election systems in court.

Heap accused Brophy McGee of using the subpoenas to intimidate his staff.

“This is an apparent and naked attempt by the Board to intimidate and bully County Recorder staff, and unduly influence the pending court ruling, all while the Board continues to refuse to work in good faith with the Maricopa County Recorder's Office,” he wrote on social media. “Their actions are beyond inappropriate.”

In a statement, Brophy McGee said the testimony is needed “so they can answer questions directly and clarify critical facts for my colleagues and me, as we perform our duties as County Supervisors. Voters deserve transparency and clear answers.”