Overview
- A settlement the Board approved on July 14 ends active litigation between County Recorder Justin Heap and the Board of Supervisors and lays out who runs which parts of county elections.
- Under the deal the Recorder’s Office will run early voting operations including drop‑box locations and early vote centers while the Board and its Elections Department will keep Election Day operations, ballot tabulation, canvassing and emergency voting.
- The county will provide more than $20 million to the Recorder’s Office with roughly $15 million earmarked for a new Recorder IT system and funding for additional IT and early‑voting staff, and the Recorder may use the shared county voter database until the new system is built.
- Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury led mediation that produced the pact and will serve as a court‑appointed special master to mediate implementation disputes, with any appeals going to the Arizona Supreme Court.
- Critics warned the split creates two election systems and could hurt voter confidence; the compromise follows a year of legal fights rooted in ambiguous state law and the termination of a prior shared‑services agreement that moved recorder IT work to the county.