Heap plans to mark over 100 residents flagged by federal SAVE tool as 'not eligible' to vote

Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap is preparing to declare hundreds of voters no longer eligible to cast ballots after a federal database flagged them as non-citizens, though questions remain about the accuracy of the federal tool and whether Heap is following the legal process to stop those people from voting.

Last month, the Recorder’s Office issued a statement announcing it had used the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE database to identify 137 non-citizens who were actively registered to vote in Maricopa County.

Heap told KTAR last week the number is now up to 208.

The Recorder’s Office also said 60 of those individuals had voted in past elections, and Heap told KTAR the office could refer those cases to law enforcement as early as next week.

Heap, a Republican, made the comments less than a month after Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes sent him a letter expressing concerns about reporting by ProPublica that found the SAVE database has a history of erroneously flagging some U.S. citizens as non-citizens.

NPR reported that the SAVE database, a decades-old tool that was designed to check immigration status and eligibility for other government programs, was overhauled by the Trump Administration with little public input or congressional oversight to give states a way to check the citizenship status of their voters.

In Texas, the tool flagged 0.015% of that state’s 18 million voters, including a naturalized citizen from South Africa.

In Maricopa County, the SAVE database identified about 0.005% of the county’s eligible voters when the Recorder’s Office checked on 61,000 voters who were affected by a high-profile flaw in the way the state’s election systems communicated with a Department of Transportation database discovered in 2024

Fontes also asked Heap to ensure he was following state law, which requires election officials to give a person time to provide proof they are an eligible voter before removing them from the rolls.

The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office did not respond to a request for comment, but Heap did send a reply to Fontes, stating his office “has handled this matter carefully, thoroughly, and in full compliance with Arizona law.”

The process

In that letter, first reported by Votebeat, Heap said his office hasn’t canceled any voter registrations yet. But he plans to move the people in question into a “non eligible” category, meaning they won’t be able to vote unless they provide the documentation required by Arizona law to prove they are a citizen before the next election.

Heap wrote that those voters will be contacted by his office and receive information about the types of documents they must provide to remain eligible to vote.

“Absent such documentation, the registrations will remain in an ineligible status through the November 2026 election,” Heap wrote. “If documented proof of citizenship is not received by that time, a subsequent notice will be sent informing the individuals that their records have been moved to a ‘not registered’ status and they must re-register with proof of citizenship to be eligible for future elections.”

But some election experts told Votebeat that Heap isn’t following the proper steps to resolve the registration questions identified by the SAVE database for people already registered to vote. Instead, he may be following separate rules for new voter registration applications that are flagged by the database.

The Recorder’s Office declined to comment and directed questions about potential investigations into non-citizens to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.