Elected officials in Maricopa County have generally been on the same page over the past few years when it comes to elections: they’ve defended the country’s administration of elections and pushed back against conspiracy theories and disinformation coming out about them.
But, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors will include three new members come January: Debbie Lesko, Kate Brophy-McGee and Mark Stewart.
A new recorder, Justin Heap, will also take the oath of office. And some of these new elected officials have been among those questioning elections in Maricopa County in the past.
Jen Fifield, a senior reporter at Votebeat, wrote about this, joined The Show to talk about what this could mean going forward, starting with if there is an expectation that with new supervisors and a new recorder coming in that some of these officials may no longer be on the same page when it comes to elections.
Full conversation
JEN FIFIELD: Definitely, they even have labeled it One Maricopa where they all respond, you know, in a united way, they defend one another currently, and it's through their mutual trust, I believe they've built with themselves and also the elections department.
They also know a lot about elections at this point. And I think that's the biggest change here is that we have new people coming in who have said that they want to look at changes and want to ask questions and want to understand the system, and that might mean questioning the system in public too well.
MARK BRODIE: And, and to your point, I mean, there are at least a couple of people who are coming in who have been, if not outright election deniers, maybe let's call them election skeptics?
FIFIELD: Yes, especially our new recorder, Justin Heap. He has called the county's elections a laughing stock multiple times. He has said that the voter rolls are dirty, that they need to be cleaned up. He has talked about how there's been long-term staff there, hired under radical Democrat, Adrian Fontes, who was the recorder at the time, now, he's our Secretary of State.
And so he definitely wants to come in and make some changes on the board of supervisors. Mark Stewart in Chandler has also said that he thinks that the mistakes from 2020 two's election should not have happened. There need to be changes to processes. So, at least those two have talked about some pretty wide scale changes.
BRODIE: Has the new recorder, Justin Heap, he has said specifically what he would like to do or are we able to look at maybe bills he sponsored or voted for or against in the legislature as hints for what he might look to do?
FIFIELD: He hasn't responded to any of my calls since he started running. But, looking at his legislative record, like you said, he introduced bills to do better ballot tracking, they call it chain of custody where you're tracking where each ballot goes. That was shut down twice, bills on that topic. He wanted, you know, he supported all of the bills to end early voting, to bring us back to precinct based voting, not have where you can vote anywhere in the county.
But, his role will be limited here. So it's not like he can come in and just overhaul the system. A lot of this belongs to the supervisors and is under their authority.
BRODIE: Well, and as you write the sort of the deal between the supervisors and the recorder as to who does what and who's responsible for what has changed over the past few years, including fairly recently. But, you report that it wouldn't be a huge shock to see that agreement reopened and maybe reworked again with the new supervisors taking office in the new recorder.
FIFIELD: I think it's almost guaranteed that they're going to get in there and work on this agreement they have on who does what now, whether they're going to a majority will agree on changes. For example, the support of supervisors took away from the recorder, things like managing the drop boxes which as you know, have been controversial ballot drop boxes in the state.
So, that's something they took away from the recorder within the last year or so. And things like that might be where, you know, Justin Heap comes in and says, you know, “I'd like control over that,” and then it's all about negotiating and seeing if they can get a majority to agree.
BRODIE: All of this is so interesting in the sense that we haven't really seen the denialism and the claims of elections being rigged to nearly the same extent we've seen over the last two cycles, especially in Maricopa County. I'm wondering how folks, either coming in or have been working for the county for a while, like, how do they see this moment in terms of, you know, where we are in terms of people having faith in elections relative to who might be coming in and the changes they might like to make.
FIFIELD: Well, I know a few people have joked with me that, you know, that “elections are fair now, don't you know?” You know, just, just kind of joking off of how Trump won and now people are less concerned about elections. But I think there's an underlying uncertainty and voter mistrust still that exists here across the state that isn't going away and that will need, you know, I think that the supervisors will still have that leverage to make changes when they're hearing from voters about, you know, how they don't trust the current system.
BRODIE: The county obviously does a lot more than elections, right? Like there's county budgets and all sorts of other agencies within Maricopa County. Do you get the sense, has anybody suggested that now that maybe the, the feeling of mistrust in elections has, has simmered down even just a little bit might that allow the, the supervisors to get back to some of the other stuff that they're responsible for and really focus on that, as opposed to just really dealing with elections for as, as much of their time as it seems like they've had to deal with that?
FIFIELD: I think that's actually been the thought for four years now. When are we going to get back to this stuff? You know, we had after the audit where they reviewed the 2020 election they thought, “Oh, we'll get back to it.” And then Kari Lake and her claims started coming around and then it was back to the 2024 cycle.
I think we'll see a lull here. Will they, there, be able to act on, like the new transportation tax, and, you know, some of their priorities coming from a business perspective and trying to look at like, the tax rate and all that. I think there'll be an opening here for a little bit, but who knows once the, you know, the new cycle starts back up.
BRODIE: Right. Does it seem as though there might be areas of agreement between the recorder and the, and the various supervisors in terms of things that can be done to improve elections that they all might be able to actually agree on?
FIFIELD: One thing for sure is the speed of election results. Four of the five supervisors I spoke with and, also we know Justin Heap, are interested in speeding up how long it takes to get results, whether that's working with state lawmakers to change the law, like the counting timeline or doing things internally too, to add staff, add machines, add different things to get results faster.
BRODIE: Yeah, it's interesting. One of the early pre-filed bills at the legislature was about doing, basically doing away with the so called late ears and requiring people who are turning their early ballots in past a certain point close to the election day to show their signature when they drop it off to try to speed that process up, that, that same goal that you were just talking about.
FIFIELD: Yeah, there's a few different ideas. One is having, you know, the voters show their ID and when they get there with their early ballot instead of letting them drop it off and having to review that signature later. And one is just not allowing them to do that at vote centers, which would be a big change. But, our governor has not been supportive of that yet, but we'll see how it shakes out. There's lots of stuff coming up in the legislature.
