Board of Supervisors - Special Meeting

All attendees are in listen only mode.

Thank you. I will call this special meeting of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to order Wednesday, 02/18/2026. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Supervisor Gallardo? Here. Vice Chair Lasko? Here. Supervisor Galvin?

Here.

Supervisor Stewart is joining us remotely. Supervisor Stewart?

Here.

And Chair Brophy McGee? Here. So all board members are in attendance. And I'm very glad to see everyone here today. If I could briefly present the rules of decorum for the board so that we can complete the business today on behalf of Maricopa County residents.

It is the intent of the members of the Board of Supervisors to follow orderly procedures for conducting business. The chair has the authority to maintain order and professional standards during open meetings and may enforce the following rules. Attendees should remain seated, please, during an open meeting. No person attending an open meeting shall engage in disorderly, boisterous conduct, including but not limited to applause, whistling, stamping of feet, booing. It's not a basketball game.

It's county business. Signs, placards, and banners are not permitted. So with that, we will get this meeting underway. The purpose of this meeting is to accept requested information from recorder heap and receive a report from the board's attorney in regard to election services. The agenda allows for action on that item if consensus is achieved.

Very much appreciate those in attendance, but please note this is a special meeting and we will not be taking public testimony. As a little bit of housekeeping for board members, Supervisor Stewart has requested and has been assigned outside counsel by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office as it relates to the lawsuit Heap versus Galvin. As you will recall, the original lawsuit was filed against the board and each of the five supervisors. And the board has been represented in this matter by Mr. Corey Langhofer.

Now we have a separate counsel representing one supervisor, Mr. Stewart. To reiterate and to correct some public assertions by Mr. Stewart that he has obtained his own counsel for today's two agenda items, it is my understanding that his assigned attorney is only for his representation in the Heap versus Galvin lawsuit. While I think it's unfortunate that taxpayer dollars need to be spent in this matter, he is not represented here today.

Point of order.

After the board hears from Mr. Heap, if he chooses to provide a statement, we will consider a resolution defining our policy related to election services and resources for the Maricopa County Recorder's Office. We will now proceed to the two items on our special agenda. The first item is presentation of a sworn report from Maricopa County recorder Justin Heap. I'd like to welcome Mr.

Heap, and thank you very much for coming. Could you come forward to present the information? Thank you, gentlemen. If you would please make sure your microphone is on when you are talking. Pull it forward so everyone can hear you.

May I ask Mr. Heap that you introduce yourself so the audience attending online and here can figure out who's who and also your staff, please.

Yes, Yes. I am recorder Justin to

You need to turn your microphone on. It goes green.

There you go.

Got

it. I am recorder Justin Heap. To my right is my chief deputy, Jeff Mason, and to my left is my legal counsel what was your name again? No, I'm just kidding. James Rogers.

Oh, okay. Thank you very much, mister Heap. Now mister Heap, the board will not be compelling you to to oh, I first of all, in relation to the presentation of information and testimony, madam clerk.

Madam chair, if I may step Please. Please.

Mr. Heap, item of housekeeping here, please. Thank you, Mr. Heap. Madam Clerk.

Mister Heath, the board will not be compelling you to answer questions today. But I invite your voluntary statement regarding the information you are presenting. I would appreciate your making your comments responsive to the itemized list on last week's board agenda, particularly as relates to item d, which says the actual or alleged disenfranchisement of Maricopa County voters who cast a provisional ballot due to the unavailability of an Agilis device or inconvenience of using a hand scanning machine, including with limitations limitation records sufficient to identify the affected voters and any disclosures of such disenfranchisement to individuals or entities outside the Maricopa County Recorder's Office. Are you familiar with that, sir, that item?

I am, your honor.

Thank you very much. And in the interest of time and fairness to you, sir, the board will not require you to answer questions today as we are just receiving this information. I ask that you please limit your comments to ten minutes. And would you prefer a timer clock or should the clerk just would you prefer a notice in advance? How would you like to work it?

A timer is fine, your honor.

Okay.

Excuse me, I'm in lawyer mode. I keep referring to you as your honor. Madam chair, I think before I start, legal counsel would like to make a quick statement.

Sure. Madam Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors

Please turn on your microphone, though it needs to be green.

It was green, wasn't close enough, my apologies. Madam Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors, it's recorder Heap's position that the statute the Board's invoked 11, Arizona revised statutes eleven-two 53 does not allow for the board to compel the production of documents, that's a different statute that allows that. Therefore, these documents are being produced the recorder is treating it as if it were a public records request and producing it under the public records laws. Given the compressed timeframe to produce these documents, we estimate about 10,000 pages worth of documents over four business days that fell over a holiday weekend. There's no time to redact the document, therefore they contain voter information, personally identifiable information, PII about county employees below the manager level.

Therefore, under the public record statutes, the recorder is releasing these documents to the board for inspection, but not for copying because they haven't been properly redacted. So therefore, they must be returned to the recorder's office to be redacted before there's any copying or further production beyond the board, which of course has the authority to review their un redacted information. There's also a handful of documents. One of the items that the board requested regarded communications with the County Attorney's Office. There's just a handful of documents that haven't been produced given privilege issues, we just have not had time to review them and work through the ethical issues there.

Just wanted to notify the Board. And it's also the recorder's position that the report due under that statute is a written report given the context of the statute and how the word report is used in Title XI. But given that the Board voted to require in person testimony in the compressed timeline, it's the recorder's position the statute allows for ten days of response time. Given the voluminous records produced, there just wasn't time to produce a written report summarizing the board's requests. So the recorder's plan was to provide an oral report as the board had requested, even though it's our position that that's allowed under the statute. And I just wanted to give those preparatory explanatory information to the Board, so thank you very much.

Thank you. Mister Heat?

Madam chair, if I may ask how much time? Ten minutes. Thank you.

Mister Heat?

Thank you. Madam chair, members of the board Please proceed. I will start with a statement regarding these documents. This request was sent to our office essentially seven days ago to demand that we turn over thousands of pages of documents that were that have put an immense amount of stress on my staff and time to try to gather this evidence in an incredibly compressed time frame, really with seven days and three of those days being a holiday and over the weekend. So my staff has put in hundreds of additional hours come in over weekends and vacation day to to try to put together these documents that the board has requested.

It has put an incredible strain on my office. I will I don't think that it is inappropriate for me to say that this reaches to the level of administrative interference. We are in the middle of an election. I have had to pull certified elections officers off of this election to spend time compiling this report and these documents to to comply with this this demand. Had this were been made during the actual general election that's coming, it would have ground our office to a halt trying to fill.

So I hope the Board will take that into account in any future request for documentation and comments. Since there will not be questions, and I am just going to make a list of the statement, I will try to quickly touch on all of the points that the Board has requested or addressed. We have listed, we have provided itemized expenditures that have to deal with all of the expenses of the office for the last year, as well as prepayment of documents, invoices, all of the financial records that the court has, excuse me, not the court, the board has requested. It confusing to me why the board has demanded that our office provide these documents when all of these things are provided to the budget office through the expense. The board could have obtained these through another department.

All of these things are submitted through for payment. We have provided them here at the request despite a very limited financial staff that has fulfilled this. We have provided reports on that we have looked at to improve cost and efficiencies as the Board requested. The court recorded additional information on signature verification and curing changes. I have made a detailed explanation of this to the board on our previous at the previous at the previous hearing on the canvas.

I will simply repeat it again. We have reworked our signature verification and quite frankly, I think we have one of the best signature verification operations in the country now. We have managed to not only increase efficiency and workflow of how it's done to get it done in a much faster period of time, But we have entered, we have put multiple layers of bipartisan checks in place so that it is transparent so both parties and people of any party can can be certain that their that this system is being done fairly. The board unfortunately has repeatedly made statements in the public suggesting that there's the possibility that this new system has somehow disenfranchised voters, and that voters may have been rejected by this system, which I think then is an incumbent on me to explain to the board what happens in the signature verification process. We have this this robust system with checks.

If a signature comes to us and we cannot match it to a signature on file, by law, we cannot advance that signature forward. That has to go to curing. In the curing process, we will reach out to the to the voter in every possible way that we have through mail, through text, through email, any information we have to reach out to the voter and give them a full opportunity to check their ballot. If they do not contact us and they do not cure their ballot, that ballot by law must be rejected. That is not disenfranchisement, that is the law.

And my office will follow the law and and make sure that that that the laws are followed to the to the letter. To be quite honest, I'm disappointed in the board that the board would raise the specter of of voter disenfranchisement on this case when it deals with my office, when the board has made no effort. Quite frankly, I think it's dubious to think that the board is really concerned about my system disenfranchising anyone because not a single member of the board has come down to my office and asked to see the rejected ballots. We'll show you the signatures. It will take all of three minutes for you looking at them to realize these signatures do not match.

But the board, unfortunately, has been willing to put this out and have speculative theoretical voter disenfranchisement. So the board now seems deeply concerned about the word disenfranchisement, but had no concern about raising it with no evidence against my office. The SEB program. I will explain this now for the third time in front of the board and why we made this change. Special election boards were set up under federal law under NAVRA.

NAVRA empowers us to to hire special election boards specifically to help people in need vote and who need assistance with voting. Unfortunately, it became aware we became aware when we came to this office that starting under Adrian Fontes and through the prior administration, that this program had been greatly expanded to a full time election workers who would remain with the office and between elections would continue to do voter registration through the SEB program. This is not in contemplated by the federal law and quite frankly, I believe it violates Arizona's law which says that we cannot spend money on voter registration efforts with full time employees. And so, we decided to put an end to that program and pull back the SEB to what is intended to under law and to do to assist with voter assistance. Now, there has been discussions.

We do want to make sure that voters who do need help with registration are still served. So we moved that program over to our to our deputy registrar program. Those are volunteers. We have set up volunteers across the valley. If there is a facility such as the one that was mentioned that requires or needs the requests to from us for assistance with a voter registration drive, we will send deputy registrars to that facility to provide reports and give assistance, but that has to come from the from the office.

And Cerro Reza Lesko has made points to a specific case. I will restate for the third time on the record, we have reached out to that facility. We have made our office available to provide them with documents to send DRs. I have been offered as a recorder to appear in person if they would like me to come and make a presentation to that facility. So I hope that puts this matter to rest.

I will talk about the I will skip some of the other things, though the Board is free to ask me questions. I want to make sure I report on each of the areas that the board spoke about. As to NCAO usages was requested by the board. Yes. Runbeck runs a check of the national vote change of address form database prior to every election and we remove those that have been changed to another state.

We still do have people who do not fill out the change of address form and maybe in another location and we try to deal with those, but that is systematically done. With the concerns about expense, the board should be aware that we that my office did investigate our use of the USPS. We discovered that the United States Postal Service has been overcharging Maricopa County for quite a few years. We have worked with them. We will be receiving a refund of $500,000 from UPS to help to defray the cost of everything going forward.

You know, it is we we used to give awards in this county for people who saved the county money. Now we get subpoenas. Now, I will say, as to the issue as to the issue of the Agilis machine and the specific questions that that were raised, the the testimony given by Janine Petty did not refer to a specific instance of voter disenfranchisement, but she is pointing to a fact that in previous elections, we have struggled to be able to complete the the number of provisional ballots that are provided within a specific time frame. That is why we have requested the use of an Agilis machine to help speed up that process. An Agilis machine is ultimately a ballot sorting machine.

Now the reason why we are requesting one and we are requesting use of the legislative funds to to make that available. May I finish on this point? Please. Yep. The reason why we are requesting this agility machine is that it will ultimately help us to to sort these ballots faster.

The struggle that we have with provisional ballots as they come in, in a major election, we may have 20,000 to 30,000 or more provisional ballots that come in. Each of those provisional ballots has to be checked in and verified by our VR team before they can move forward and be processed. The trouble is that many counties, even smaller than Arizona sorry, smaller than Maricopa, have an Agilus shorter. Maricopa relies on hand scanners. So we have to have people go through and literally by hand scan in each of these ballots.

This is a problem if we have 20 to 30,000 because our employees have to as we're going through and certifying, let's say we verify 800 of these ballots. We have to have employees go back through and use hand scanners to identify, to find these specific ballots and pull them out to get those over to the Board so that they can be processed for tabulation. And this process has to be repeated over and over and over again. It is labor intensive. It is difficult.

What the Agilis machine would allow us to do is as we are scanning in these as we are verifying these provisional ballots, we can simply put them into the sorter. We could put 20,000 to 30,000 into the sorter and in forty five minutes it will pull out all of the ballots that we've verified. And we can be doing that throughout the month so that all of these can get verified one way or another before the deadline. And that deadline is shortening next year, it will shorten down to six days that we have to get this done. So we have requested this machine.

Now the Board has specifically asked, well, can we use the machines at Runback? It is possible to use the machines at Runback, but it creates a couple of problems. Number one, RunVac system does not link up to our voter registration database. They receive a file that contains our database, but we have to run that file back and forth. If we want to use Runvec's machine, it creates a chain of custody nightmare because if we have 20 to 30,000 ballots and we've certified 1,500 of them, we have to then transport all those ballots over to Runvec, put them in a machine, have pull out the verified ones, and then transport those ballots back to our reporter's office because Runbeck does not hold on to those ballots for us.

Put them back in, continue, we will have workers running. We'll have to have a Board of workers running back and forth between run back, moving thousands of ballots multiple times throughout the process. It will create far more problems. So our best solution, and if the Board refuses, we will figure out a way to make sure it gets done. But the easiest way would be for us to own an Agilus sorting machine that's in our custody that we can run and use those ballots that will connect directly up to the system.

So I cannot testify to what happened as Janine Petty did in previous elections or previous cycles. I'm not here. We have provided what data we can to the Board on that, but her testimony really was to reflect a broken system that we are trying to fix. This is one of the things I trust the experts in my office if they tell me this is a machine that would be helpful to us to make sure we eliminate the problem and the expense of provisional ballots, then we will then that's what I'm going to ask for. In this case, I'm grateful to the legislature which has provided funds. We've offered to pay for that and all

of

the future expenses on that machine upfront with the legislative monies until we have a new center built that has our own machines and we can eliminate. I don't think it's a waste even when we have that new facility. It will still be helpful to have an Agilis machine to run small batches. And I believe you and the election department will continue to use that going forward. So I think it's a valid use of our time. I believe I'm out of time. I will take questions if you'd like or address any other issues. I want to make certain that the Board feels that this report addressed their concerns or issues.

Thank you, Mr. Heap, and I appreciate your offer to answer questions. Let me start with Vice Chair Lasko.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The thing that we brought up last week that I think you know about is in the court hearing, I think it was on January 26, your Chief of Staff, Sam Stone, testified under oath that when we were talking about the Agilis machine and said I can read it verbatim, but he basically said, We are disenfranchising voters now. In fact, I might have the verbatim thing he said, but I think you know what he said. And so we're trying to clear it up because then two days later, when you were in front of us in the budget hearing, the budget request hearing, you said there were no voters being disenfranchised. So the we weren't specifically talking about Janine Petty's testimony.

We were talking about Sam Stone, your Chief of Staff, who said we're disenfranchising voters now because of, you know, he was kind of inferring because we didn't approve this Agilus sorting machine. And so and then Jeanine Petty went on to testify about how in a previous election that happened. But so I'm just trying to figure out, are we disenfranchising voters now, as your chief of staff said in court, under sworn oath, or are we not? Because it's important. Because if we are, then we need to try to fix it. And I'd like you to answer, if you would.

Yes. And I have to say, at this point, Mr. Stone has also been assigned his own counsel. I can't speak for Mr. Stone.

I believe the quote came as part of a cross examination on the need for an Agilis machine. If I recall, his statement was something that we are getting this Agilis machine to make sure that in the future we do not disenfranchise voters, which is happening now. I think what he meant to say was that it had happened in the past, and we're making sure that doesn't happen. I certainly have spoken to my staff. We have not seen any evidence that so far this year that this lack of an agility machine has caused any disenfranchisement.

We haven't had a large enough election that we haven't been able to manage. It is possible that that, you know, that we'll do it. I can can think I I think the confusion came then is that the chair then asked me, well, do you agree with your staff member that that we're disenfranchising voters? I assume she was talking about Ms. Petty's testimony. She just identified the employee. I didn't even remember this comment from Sam. I think it was a single comment in a cross examination. I assumed that. I said, I believe the testimony was that had that voters may have been disenfranchised in previous administrations, not in this one.

That's why I think there was the apparent apparent confusion. I have spoken to our staff. I have not seen evidence that the lack of an Agilis machine has thus far this year caused us. Now we haven't had a general election yet. This will be a struggle for us whether we have it or not to make sure that we can get it done in the time frame. But that is my understanding of the confusion.

And thank you for that answer. And Madam Chair, I guess I don't know how to it would be appreciative if you went back and corrected court record then.

Point in

order, Madam Chair.

Supervisor Galvin.

Through the chair, Supervisor Lesko, would you mind reading the exact testimony that you have? Thank you.

Thank you. Well, she's looking up. Do you have a question, sir?

Not at the moment. Thank you. I might later.

Very quickly, on January 22, I sent you a letter requesting virtually the same information you're delivering now. Are you in receipt of the letter?

Well, with respect, Madam Chair, when the court excuse me, when the Board stated this publicly that a letter had been sent to my office on the twenty second, I didn't know what the Board was talking about. My office did not actually receive a physical letter from the chair. I then went back and ran a search through my email and I found an email, emailed directly from the chair to my email address with just an attached PDF of a letter. It wasn't CC'd to any of my senior staff or my executive to no one else. It was literally just from you to me.

It is a very busy time right now with the legislative session dealing with the recorders association and everything else. I get dozens and dozens of emails a day if this email was just attached as a nondescript PDF with no flag or urgency or anything to make it clear. I did not see it until after it was addressed by the court. So in the future, I think the standard practice would be to actually send a physical letter downstairs and make sure that our staff received it. That would have certainly given us more time to address your statements or concerns before this.

Thank you, Mr. Heat. Back to Vice Chair Lasko.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In answer to Supervisor Galvin's question, I finally found the copy of testimony, and it says and this is Sam Stone saying this under oath in court on 01/26/2026. He answered, We had two we're talking about the Agilis machine and how there wasn't a place to put it, and that type of thing. We had two potential places we would have made the substantial changes to one or the other to bring this in to not disenfranchise voters, which is happening now. And and that was the crux of it, and and so thank you for your testimony.

Are there any other questions from board members?

Madam chair. Madam chair.

Mister Galvin.

Madam chair, recorder Heap, when you talk about signature verification, is the legal standard a perfect match or broad characteristics?

Broad characteristics.

Thank you. Madam chair, thank you.

Thank you. Supervisor Stewart.

Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Recorder Heath, is there anything that you aren't able to share with us that you would like to share in that ten minute allotment that you had? It's a pretty big issue, and I think any sunshine that you can provide that you'd like to provide for the community would be welcome.

Mister Stewart, what was the question? You're a little

there any is it was it breaking up?

A little bit. Yeah.

Justin, is there anything else that you would like to share that you weren't able to share in the ten minutes you are allotted that you think the public and the board need to know?

I understand. Thank you. Mr. Heap, do you have any final comments?

No, not at this time. Madam Chair, thank you.

Appreciate it.

Madam Chair?

Mr. Stewart?

Thank you. I'd like to make a motion that we declare that we've received this report from Recorder Heath and that the recorders fulfilled its official duties as regard to the request made pursuant to ARS 11,253, and that establishing the report is unsatisfactory to receive and no action can be taken further, and that he has made and fulfilled his duties within a statutory period of ten days.

Thank you, Mr. Stewart. There's a motion on the table. Is there a second? The motion dies for lack of a second.

Madam Chair.

Excuse me. Mister Galvin.

Madam chair, recorder heaps, your chief of staff Sam Stone testified to us that MCAO had approved your mail ballot plan for the c d seven race last year. County attorney Rachel Mitchell has denied that. Then Sam Stone told the court that he had told MCAO about the plan by sending them his written election plan. As far as we can tell, that document never disclosed that your office would be mailing ballots to people who did not request them. How do you reconcile Sam's testimony to us today, to the court, and to those documents?

Well, thank you, madam chair, supervisor. I appreciate you asking this to give me to give some clarification on what what happened in this case. This this issue came about because we we were running our first election. It was the c d seven election. Now, I certainly wanted to to use this election as an opportunity to show the board that we could work collaboratively together with the election department that there there would not be any issues going forward.

During our discussions with the board's election team, we became aware that there were two districts in there were two precincts, excuse me, in the very southern corner of Maricopa County that would not be able have an election a polling location placed within an hour of their homes. These two precincts, I believe, if I recall, together made up a 157 people. Of those, there were 37. Yeah, 37 sounds right. Give or take a few, I'm trying to remember back.

Voters who were not on the voter list and would not, and therefore, would neither receive a ballot or have an opportunity to to vote in any election location near them. So we wanted to make sure that those voters would be allowed the opportunity and they would not be disenfranchised. We spoke with our election director who said that in previous elections, we were able to present this. We were able to combine these and under law that we would be able to essentially offer these 37. So, the board unfortunately has repeatedly restated this over and over again to imply that I tried to implement universal mail in ballot across the entire account across the entire election, which is something I did not do.

This deals with about three dozen voters in rural Arizona that would not be given a polling location.

Madam chair.

And so

follow-up, supervisor Gowan. Are you finished, mister Heat?

Sure. Thank you. And so we we made this proposal. Now, this proposal was made to Scott Jarrett, who informed us that he could not find a polling location in that place. I do know there was a discussion with the MCAO about this issue.

However, this issue, this proposal was not even put in our plan to the MCAO, and we never implemented it. I'm not sure why the board has continued to hang up on a proposal that has never been actually that was never implemented in any way. We simply found another way. I do find some irony. I do know that representative Gallardo in a previous meeting suggested a concern that there was some bipartisan effort, some partisan bent in my office. I have basically taken hits from the board for the last year because I tried to put an implement to make sure that three dozen rural democrats would not be disenfranchised and not being given an opportunity.

Madam chair, I'm gonna ask you again, Heat.

Yes.

Did MCAO approve Sam Stone's plan to send ballots to voters who did not request them?

Well, that was never in

Yes or no? Mister Galvin

I can't look, I can't I think some of that information falls under privileged communications with the board. We would have to review and see what information that we can give. I know it was discussed on the phone with SAMHSA with the MCAO, but it was not part of our ultimate election plan. I think the more interesting question is how did the board find out about this if it wasn't in our election plan? Because we discussed this only with Scott Jarrett.

If the board had an issue with us offering this option to three dozen voters, why didn't the board contact us and say, hey, we don't think this is a good idea. It's not good precedent. We think that you should check on it. Instead, the board waited and had talking points and waited for my staff to come in and then publicly attempted to embarrass them and accuse them in a meeting. If we were to work if we were to work together cooperatively, why didn't the board actually just reach out and call and say, hey, we heard this is a proposal you're making. We have a concern that you are that about this. Can we do something else? And I would have happily taken that guidance from

the Thank madam chair. As I recall

Mister Gavin, last question. Sorry.

As I recall, the question was asked of mister Stone if MCAO approved it. He said yes. Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you. And for the record, want and particularly mister Stewart, is participating remotely, I'd like to note that this agenda item was specifically not noticed for any vote, which makes the motion that was put on the table out of order. It was simply to receive a report. We haven't had a chance to review it. The report has been sworn to.

And for that, we thank you, Mr. Heat. We appreciate your coming. We are taking delivery of this information, and we will consider it carefully and decide what further action to take. Very quickly, as a follow-up question, may I please extend an invitation on behalf of the board to meet with us voluntarily at a date in the near future to follow-up on board members' review of this information and ask questions?

You can extend it, I guess. I will consider it when we get the invitation.

So that was a maybe, sir? Yes,

maybe.

Okay. For a year, we've been trying to get answers, and we're pleased we now have these documents to review. We have a maybe to come back together voluntarily, not through compelled testimony, and ask follow-up questions because there's a lot of homework to do there for us. So, again, I ask sir, could we do this voluntarily?

Look, I will wait to see the status and what the invitation is. It's very difficult for me to commit to coming in to discuss this report when the court when it's the board that has invoked a specific statute that says if you find my report insufficient or that I fail to make a report, that you can vote to remove me from office. I believe that's an unconstitutional action. I'm loath to then say, well, let's come back to another meeting and discuss this. If at that other meeting, future what if the board at that point determines that my report is sufficient?

Do you intend to take a vote on my removal? Will wait until to see what the board does and what the request is and under what spirit we're going to be discussing it. I think if it's a reasonable request, we'll accept it.

Well, I am working to establish enough of a relationship on behalf of the board so that your so that your testimony would not have to be compelled. We have worked very hard over the past year to get basic information. And if there is not order in this room, I would ask, please, our security to start really considering if anyone needs to be removed. Thank you for your decorum. So we will take, following this testimony, sworn testimony from Mr.

Heap, we will take a five minute recess and proceed to the next agenda item. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, madam chair. Thank you.

Thank you. We will reconvene this board meeting and move on to agenda item number two, possible action concerning election services and resources for Maricopa County Recorder's Office. By way of introduction, the four board members that Corey Langhofer now represents in Heap v Galvin have been working to resolve the case outside of the court to save taxpayer dollars and to work hand in hand with the recorder's office to deliver safe and secure elections. I did wanna note, I did receive a letter from Rachel Mitchell, Maricopa County attorney. Just came in over the wire.

And miss Mitchell has appointed mister Steven Tully to represent board member Mark Stewart in the lawsuit. So that relationship is in place. It pertains to the lawsuit. With that being said, we will proceed to agenda item number two. And I'd like to turn this over to the board's attorney, Corey Langhofer, to discuss the resolution and negotiations. And mister Langhofer, you have the floor, and then I will open it for questions from the board for any opening comments.

Thank you, madam chair. I in my mind, I'm available to answer questions from Thank you, Madam Chair. Hopefully this is better. In my mind, I'm available to answer questions. Didn't have prepared Okay.

Any questions from board members?

Madam Chair, I do have some Vice Chair, let's go. Thank you, Madam Chair. And Mr. Langhofer, first I'm going to say a short statement and then ask you some questions. I've been really frustrated, quite frankly, and I don't think it needed to come to this.

For more than a year, the Board of Supervisors has tried earnestly to resolve its differences with mister Heap. I personally voted for Justin Heap in the Republican primary, and I have really honestly tried to work with him. During that time, it has been the most contentious issue at the county and distracted elected officials and staff from our work. Know, it's taken up I most of

would ask that there be no gestures or movements. It's distracting the people around you, please. Otherwise, I will ask you to be excused. Thank you.

So I'm very interested in hearing from you, Mr. Linghoffer, about the state of negotiations with Mr. Heap and whether we are any closer to a resolution. Our intention today is not to seek legal advice in public, but to focus on factual developments and communications between the parties. So please don't offer any legal advice in this setting. Thank you. With that in mind, let me ask you some questions about where we stand. My first question is, when did settlement negotiations begin?

Settlement negotiations between the board and the recorder's office began before I was even hired. I know that in April, there was a meeting between the subcommittee of this board and mister Heap and his leadership to work out a deal. That was on April 11. And the that, you know, came to naught, as you know. Eventually, the lawsuit was filed, we started we we resumed settlement discussions within a few days of the lawsuit being filed.

Well, thank you. And and mister Linghofer, are you aware that recorder heaps texted Mark Stewart and me on 04/11/2025, so last year, saying, quote, Debbie and Mark had the meeting with Tom, Kate, and staff. I felt it went very well. We seem to be in agreement on 95% and are only discussing minor details on how to effectively split up the IT team. Were you aware of that?

Yes, ma'am. I was. I've seen it when I was going through exhibits, and I think it's also consistent with something that his chief of staff, Sam Stone, said to the press at the same time. He said the remaining differences were just splitting hairs. It was I think the same week those two statements happened.

Yeah. And quite frankly, the whole board was happy. We're like, oh, we finally got to an agreement after a few months. But then, are you aware that the board's lawyer at that time then sent a new shared service agreement to Recorder Heap for him to sign, which was based on the terms agreed to in the April 1125 meeting, and that's the same meeting that the recorder referenced in his text to Mark and me about how we're 95% there.

Yes, ma'am. I understand that happened, but it was never signed.

Yes. And are you aware that the board waited for a response from recorder Heap, and that instead of responding, unfortunately, mister Heap fired that attorney, which was the second attorney he had, replaced him with a third attorney.

I wasn't on board at that time, but that's the way the story has always been told to me.

Thank you. Have settlement discussions continued since then, Mr. Linghoffer?

Yes, ma'am. I saw the counsel for Mr. Heap in November, shortly after the TRO hearing, and we sort of started conversation then about settlement, and then that we sort of ramped up again in mid January before the most recent evidentiary hearing. So it's really been going on since April.

Yeah, it has. In fact, Mr. Linghofer, it's been going on before that because I I think we I was talking to mister Heap even before we were sworn in. I was trying to figure this out. Mister Linghofer, what did judge Blaney say about settlement at the last evidentiary hearing in late January? And that's that was in the court hearing where mister Heap sued the board of supervisors, and so we went to court.

Judge Blaney ordered the parties to try to settle this case. I think most most judges are uncomfortable being asked to exercise the power of an elected body, a policy body like you. And so he he told us at the January 26 hearing. He told us the same thing. I don't know if it was in order, but he really asked us to try to settle at the hearing we had since then. I think he's actually said that every time we've talked to him in this case, even like status conferences, he encourages us to just wrap this up between the parties.

Well, and I wish we could. You know, that's been the objective all along, and I really honestly believe the board has really tried to get there. Have we followed the judge's order to attempt the settlement?

Yes, ma'am. So he ordered us to attempt to have a meet and confer about settling, lawyer speak for just try to talk it out, no later than January 12. And he gave that order at the January 26 hearing. Before we left the courtroom that day, Mr. Heap's lawyer and I talked for, I don't know, maybe five minutes. And I sort of said, look, in my mind, here's what would probably work. What if we handle IT this way and elections this way and so on? So we got the ball rolling. I think that was perhaps a Monday or Tuesday. By Thursday or Friday, we'd given him our sort of deal points.

And then he responded in writing January 30. We responded in writing February 11. So it's been going back and forth since then. We we we certainly did it before the judge's deadline of of February 12.

Thank you. And what has been Recorder Heap's response to the most recent offer that you sent his attorney back last week on February 11, a week ago. Has he responded?

We have not got what I could describe to you as a serious response. On, I think it was Sunday, events have been sort of unfolding relatively quickly. So on Sunday, it was bothering me that we hadn't heard from him. So I called Mr. Heap's lawyer and said, hey, we've got this offer outstanding. You know, we're going to court over all this stuff, spending much money. Are you gonna respond to that settlement offer? We're really close, honestly. Like what we were proposing, what they're talking about was really close. And didn't really hear back from him again until Monday, substantively.

And on Monday, he said he read me some points that I gather written down because he was reading them to me. And some of those are fine, they're what we proposed. Some of them are a little bit different, maybe not a big deal. Some of them probably wouldn't work, but we're kind of in the zone at that point. This is Monday night. So I said to his lawyer, I said, great. Send this over. I'll talk to the board. The board wants to hear a settlement offer. Let's let's present that. And he said that he would not be sending it over.

And is that something that normally happens in settlement negotiations? They just say, we're not sending you a response?

This is not normal, the way this has unfolded. You certainly do see people reach a point in settlement negotiations where you say, we've tried. We can't settle, we have to fight. But in this case, it's it's a little bit different. Right? Like my my perception was that he was reading to me their deal points, but he wouldn't put it in writing. And his his request to me was that I should put in writing his deal points and send it back to Heap as though it were your offer. And I said, it's not their offer. You've got their offer. It's in writing.

Like, that's that is the offer. And, you know, I don't know. The call might have lasted ten, maybe fifteen minutes. And at the end, he said, I'll try. Can't make any promises.

And what was his explanation for refusing to send it over? Well,

I remember two things. One of them was that Mr. He feels upset about the way the negotiations have gone. His perspective, it was relayed to me, was that the board hasn't given enough ground. That he feels like he's given ground, he feels like the board hasn't given ground. Obviously, we disagree, but this happens. The other thing so he didn't want a response. He thought he'd given too much writing. He didn't want to even reject it in writing, just no response. And then the second thing he said was that there was a tweet that you, supervisor Lesko, had sent out earlier that day.

This is Monday now. And he said they just wanted to construe your tweet as an offer from the board, and so I should send over your tweet as an offer, which was surprising.

Yeah. Normally, these things are several pages long. Right? Negotiated settlements, not a not a tweet. Where so where did you leave the conversation on on Monday night?

I I asked him to you know, I don't wanna say that I I asked him repeatedly and forcefully, like, you know how this works. You've got to send it to me. Like, I can't take an oral offer because if we accept it then, you'll just say it's not what you offered. Right? Like, need it from you in writing. The board wants to hear it. Like, there's there's five people who want an offer. And he just said, I'll try. Can't make any promises.

And have you heard back from Recorder Keep's attorney with any substantively in any substantive matter since then?

So just yesterday evening, last night, we had a maybe yesterday afternoon into the evening, we had an email exchange again. And I asked him again, please send the offer in writing. We want to present it. And he said that he wasn't gonna be able to do that. And he said, if we needed something in writing, your tweet was their written counteroffer. I was familiar with the tweet the first time you mentioned it. And my recollection of the tweet is you were you know, it's it's Twitter, right? So it's three sentences or something. You were referencing our last counteroffer to them and sort of summarizing it.

Mhmm.

It wasn't approximating the level of detail that we've been through before in this.

Right. I agree. And what is the status of the settlement negotiations then? Where are we at?

I don't think it's too much to say the settlement negotiations are dead. We've tried, approaching the sort of outer bounds of dignity, like the desperation with which I'm asking him to send me something in writing. And you can't shake it from the tree. And so even if you you want an agreement, you can only do that if the other person talks to you. And so I I think settlement has stalled out.

Let's talk about so that the people here and the people watching understand, let's talk about the substance of the last settlement offer that you communicated to Recorder Heap as attorney. At a high level, what were the terms that the Board of Supervisors offered to Mr. Heap?

There's a lot there. There's a lot of detail. But just at a high level, as you're asking, there's two big points. One is about the IT system. And we would basically split it up, so he would take his half and you would take yours. And the other one is about in person early voting. Basically, he would get to run it with some sort of safeguards to make sure it doesn't break the bank, that the county can afford to run it the way he's been asking for.

And in your perception, those are his two biggest asks. Correct?

That's right. That's fundamentally what this case is about. There's a lot of other things, but those are the big pieces.

Yeah. Let's start with the IT system. Currently, there is one IT system that both the recorder and the board of supervisors use to administer elections. Recorder Heap is unhappy, unhappy, it's my understanding, he's unhappy that his office doesn't have a stand alone system. Would the last settlement offer have solved that problem?

Yes, ma'am. It would solve that problem. The idea that we proposed is, as you know, the board's already commissioned a report from some IT consultants on how would you dissect this really complicated system into two halves. You cannot do this in a weekend. It's very difficult and it will take time. And it's the sort of thing that you can't get wrong. If you split it up and it doesn't work, and you've got to run an election with a couple million people, it's a disaster. Right? So you've to do it just right. So you've a consultant working on that.

The settlement offer on IT was we would split it up. We're going to get this report in, maybe it's just come in, it's imminent if it's not here. We're going to take the recommendations of this consultant, split it up. Give them their half, you keep your half. It's gonna take a little bit of time to do that separation. So in the meantime, you would fund half of the IT staff, about 16 positions, that are currently under your supervision and just move them over to the recorder staff. So they've got half the team, you've got half the team. If anyone wants to make a change that affects the other side, it's got to go through a review process where both sides have to approve it so we know no one's being sort of no accidental programming errors that cause problems. And, you know, that's all you can do. You can't split it faster than you can split it.

So we'll divide up the staff now and make sure this is handled as expeditiously as possible.

The second major thing that RecorderHeap has been asking for is in person early voting. And that's a complicated topic because it involves real estate, meaning where, you know, contracts with different sites, machines, the machines that have to be there, and personnel that are trained. What did our last settlement offer there? What did it say?

Well, yeah. So there's the first problem to solve when you're thinking about in early voting is the real estate. Where are these sites going to be? And what we would like to have is that if there's an in person early voting site near you let's say it's the church on the corner near your house it's open for the in person early voting period, but then when election day comes, you can still go to the same site. So it's just nice and sort of continuous to have the same site.

Once it opens, it doesn't close until 07:00 on election day. So since the board's running election day and Heap's running early voting, we would like to get on the same page with sites. If he's using it for early, you use it for election day. So we say, look, the last settlement offer said, We're going to give you the list of sites that we were planning to use. You can change that if you want. You can take some off, you can add some. The new sites you pick have to be acceptable, right? They've to be If you're in a wheelchair, you've got to be able to access it. There's got to be some parking, power, Internet, enough space for machines, just normal things. And then you've to make sure they're not distributed in a way that's burdening one political party or ethnic group.

So here's our proposal. Change it as you want, following these basic rules. Bring it back and we'll approve it. The board will approve it, or review it and hopefully approve it, because you have authority over real estate. So they can pick the sites. As long as the contracts are available and reasonably priced, you'd be approving it. So that's the site selection part of it. Another big part of early voting, though, is machines. So when you get your ballot, you gotta check-in, there's a machine that checks you in. There's tabulators on-site and so on.

These machines are astonishingly expensive. I mean, this is a really big county, not just in Arizona, but nationally. So if you had to buy all new machines for the early voting period, you've got to cut something else that's significant. So we said, look, the board's going to let you use the machines we already have. But you've got to use those, and we've got to make sure they're secure and so on.

And the third big part of impersonally voting is the staff. So on election day, need 4,000 workers to handle the polls in Maricopa County. And you don't you you it would be best if the people who are working on Election Day had worked in the early voting periods. They kind of know what to do. They've got done it a few times, election day runs smoother. You only get one election day. You get a lot of early voting days, you get one election day. So you want your election day workers to have started early, gone through the early voting process, and got some experience. You also don't want a bunch of people who work just election day, and then a completely separate team who works early voting, because then you're hiring twice and you're training twice. It's more expensive.

Right? So the last offer was we would jointly hire these people for election day and early voting and work together to train them. I think that the last proposal said for training, since the board staff is the one that had historically done this training, it would take the lead on preparing the materials and doing the trainings. Great if the recorders people could attend those trainings, but your folks have the experience with it, so you take the lead on training. That was the high level summary of the last offer we sent over.

You know, you've been talking a lot about all of the things that we put in our counter proposal to Mr. Heaven. How do you believe you've doing this a while, You've been dealing with election issues at the, you know, national level, local level. And how do you believe your ours our settlement our proposal, I should say, of a settlement compares to what Mr. Heap wants?

It's a good question, and I'll say it's so close. I mean, the differences that we're left talking about are vanishingly small, like almost invisible. And that's part of why I was so insistent, like, just send this offer over. We want to hear this. We're really close. Well, I'll tell you what. Better yet, I'll use the words of Judge Blaney at the last hearing. We were about to wrap up and, you know, just the moment where you say like, all rise, we're all getting ready for the judge to leave. He looked at me and he said, this case does not deserve to be in court. And he didn't know how small these differences were, but in my view, the differences that are left, they do not deserve to be in court.

They're very small.

And I agree. I mean, I've been reading this, and it's like, we're so close. I don't know why I I really am mystified, quite frankly, why recorder Heap just doesn't respond and either say yes or just say, oh, these are the changes I want. Because really, we're coming down to some really minutiae type things, but the big issues, I think we're I think we're there. I I just wanna confirm. All of these terms that you've been describing, that's the most recent offer from the Board of Supervisors. Right?

Yes, ma'am.

To which they've not responded in a in a substantive way. Correct?

That's right.

Okay. Well, to me, these terms seem really reasonable. What we've offered, it keeps cost down, it lets recorder Heap get his own IT system, and in person early voting. I mean, those are the things he has told you or his lawyer has told you that he wants. And he's told that to me and I think the public. And quite frankly, it helps the twenty twenty six election run smoothly, which is which one of those provisions does mister Heap dispute? Do you know?

I I do not know because we haven't seen anything in writing. And some of some of the terms we've discussed, it seems to me like we're on exactly the same page, and so I'm mystified.

Madam chair, I understand that today, we're there's gonna be a proposed resolution that we're going to consider, and to adopt adopt some of the proposals that were in our most recent settlement offer. Mister Langhofer, can you tell me about that, that resolution?

Yes, ma'am. The as we've discussed, the problem here is that you you cannot have agreement. Know, agreement's bilateral. There's at least two people involved. You can't have an agreement if the other people won't respond. And so I think the big idea behind the resolution is it's something you can do on your own. You don't require agreement or someone to return your phone call or email. You have certain authorities. You have authority over real estate issues. You have authority over the budget. And so the idea of the resolution is to take these big issues and say, this is our policy. This gives him what he wants. And we don't need to be in court asking a judge on these because we already have a policy that satisfies his demands.

And Madam Chair, Mr. Ling Hofer, is this resolution that I think we're proposing to vote on, is it similar to our last offer to Mr. Heath?

Yes, ma'am. It's very similar. It basically takes that offer and then removes the things that would require some agreement. So for example, one of the things we hadn't been able to agree on was who writes the slide deck, the presentation, to train poll workers. This is a tiny detail. You need some agreement on that. You don't have, I think, unilateral authority on that issue. So we take that out. But the big points remain, and that's what the resolution is.

Thank you, Mr. Langhofer, and I yield back.

Thank you. I want to make sure that board members, including Mr. Stewart, have a copy of the proposed resolution, but I would also like to ask if board members have any further questions for Mr. Langhofer.

Madam chair, I do and I really appreciate supervisor Lesko for her incredible good and insightful questions. Mr. Langhofer, Supervisor Lesko made some reference to your experience and to your knowledge of election law. You are considered to be one of the most national foremost experts on election law. You don't have to give us your entire curriculum vitae, but another thing I wanna point out is that this board is composed of five members which include four republicans and one democrat. You yourself have represented republicans over the years in a variety of election litigation issues and election integrity issues. Can you kind of just walk us through your experience and your knowledge and your expertise on this issue, please?

Sure thing. I started working in elections in the twenty twelve election cycle. I, you know, it was before that, was a federal prosecutor and decided I wanted to get into politics. So since 2012, I've worked on all the presidential campaigns that have come along. Worked for, you know, congressional campaigns, federal senatorial campaigns, certainly a lot for legislature. We've represent the we've sued you. It was you, we sued this board many times. Sorry. And, you know, we've been on the other side of this. We were, you know, as far as political affiliation go, reputation is to be very republican.

We don't really get hired by democrats. And been doing it for fourteen years now, federal, state, local elections.

Okay. Thank you. You know, when mister Heap was elected in November 2024, I reached out to him and we met in December 2024 for breakfast, met over about a couple of hours. And he told me things that he wanted to see changed, things that he thought should be different. I respected his opinion and I expected and was planning on becoming Chairman in January and I said to him I look forward to working with you on those issues because I knew that my incoming colleagues would feel the same way.

And in January 2025, I did become Chairman of the Board. One of the things I announced in my speech right there where you're about sitting right there facing the audience was that I said that the Board would like to do an audit of elections procedures, not elections results, but election procedures. And we thought that was vitally important in terms of election integrity and in terms of making sure that we're getting better every single day. This happens in the private sector. After you're done doing an operation, you take a look back and see what can be done, what can be better. However, in Arizona, we have a unique system of elections. In Arizona, we have 15 counties. Maricopa County is composed of only one of those 15 counties, but in all 15 counties, election law operates the same way. It's dictated by state law. Maricopa County doesn't set policy on elections.

We have to follow state law. And whether you're a small county like Greenlee County or a small county like La Paz County, you and Maricopa County have to run elections the same way. In this instance, in Maricopa County and all the other 14 counties, election duties are bifurcated between the board of supervisors and the recorder. It's not the way I would have designed it. I don't think it's the way anyone sitting in the audience here today would have designed it, but that's how it is.

And fundamentally, the Recorder in any county is in charge of voter registration and early ballot processing or receiving or sending out envelopes. The Board of Supervisors are responsible for almost the rest, which includes overseeing day of voting operations when people literally vote in person on election day. But also, ultimately, the Board of Supervisors are responsible for canvassing the election, which means we have to sit up here and vote on how the election was conducted. Those are responsible roles. But it's a forced marriage.

We have to respect the person that was elected to that office and the person who's elected to the office of recorder has to respect the five members of the board of supervisors. Unfortunately, by February 2025, Justin Heap released a statement threatening to sue the board of supervisors. However, this board and myself and Kate Brophy McGee, who's sitting here to my right, we directly negotiated with Justin Heap intimately, close face to face in the same room. And it met ultimately on Friday, April 11 upstairs. And that is where you're hearing that we basically had a deal done, a verbal deal done.

By April 24, the board of supervisors came back to this dais to review what we basically thought was an agreement. And the reporter tweeted out this, and supervisor Lesko made reference to it earlier. On April 24, this is what was written in the tweet. Ahead of this, recorder heaps chief of staff, Stam Stone, tells me they are close to approving an agreement with the board of supervisor, causing it, quote, splitting hairs at this point. No matter what's said at the meeting, Stone says, the agreement and efficient elections is, quote, more important than anyone's feelings.

Unfortunately, after that day, we never heard again from recorder Heap or his office until they filed a lawsuit several weeks later. Now, that's not the only time they have filed in court, and I made a reference earlier to the audit of election processes that we tried to do. And in fact, if you're gonna audit elections, you need to audit the recorder's office as well. And recorder Heap gave us a verbal assent to participating in that audit, which I think was very important for the constituents of Maricopa County, but not only that, the state of Arizona and frankly around the country. Mister Langhofer, did mister He filed something in court to stop that audit?

He he did. The the motion that he filed was to stop the audit of the IT system that I was describing earlier.

And that's not the only two times he's filed in court to stop things. Do you know roughly ballpark or maybe you know the exact number? How many times has Recorder Heath filed something in court in the court's system here in Maricopa County?

I think we're up to five emergency motions from mister Heap on this last year.

Okay. Five times. At least five times he has made separate filings in court and just basically a year in office. Maybe explains why he hasn't answered Kate Profumiguy's emails. He's been too busy filing a court. You're make a point?

Yeah. That's it's not just five filings. It's five filings that he claims are emergencies. Yep. So you're saying, judge, stop everything you're doing. This is the most important thing you have five times.

Okay. Madam chair, the two main issues include in person early voting. I do believe that the board has bent over backwards to make good faith appeals and good faith offers to work with the recorder's office on all of these items, especially in person early voting. But I wanna address the IT separation because I feel that in all of my personal interactions with mister Heap, that has been the most important issue to him. We also recognize that it's important to him, but he's not the only county elected official in Maricopa County.

We also have to work with an assessor, a treasurer, a county attorney, a sheriff, a state superintendent of schools, all of them have IT needs and all of them have IT responsibilities. However, if you take all of those elected officials that we must interact with, I think Mr. Heap has probably been 99% of the problems that we've had to deal with. The other ones have been very professional, they have been very cordial, and I think they've operated in good faith to interact with us on whether they have IT needs. Can you please delve and exactly explain how many positions we're offering for him in IT, which are probably more than what we originally proposed or felt comfortable with, but to show that we are in good faith trying to give him what he needs, please talk about the IT positions and why we are offering them to him.

Thank you.

So the IT positions that they had actually requested in their last counteroffer to us, this was back in January, they said they wanted half of the IT staff. So in late twenty twenty four, the IT staff that's sort of at dispute here was 32 people. So 16 people is what we're talking about. He would get those over on his side, you know, under his roof.

Okay. Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you. Are there any other questions? Vice Chair Lesko, you said you had a follow-up.

Thank you, Madam Chair. What Mr. Galvin said made me think of something. It's my understanding that in the back and forth between negotiations that you had with Mr. Heap's lawyer that they did agree to split up the IT. Is is that accurate?

That's that's right. I mean, as far as I remember, and I don't have the counters in front of me, but their last proposal to us was we would split it up and they would take half the staff. This is that.

Right. And Madam Chair, this isn't a question. It's just like, we are so close. I don't even know what we're arguing about. Really, folks, this did not have to come to this. I really believe the ball is in Recorder Heap's court. I mean, he has what we're offering. It sounds like we I feel like we gave him what he wanted. And so he just needs to respond and say, okay, I don't like this word or whatever, and so I'll I'll, you know, change that or whatever, or say yes. And this whole thing is done.

This whole thing is done. It's been very frustrating to me, and I hope I actually call on Recorder Heap to please come back to the negotiating table, respond to our very reasonable proposal, and let's finish this all. It's causing a lot of fury, a lot of misinformation, and I'm just so frustrated. I just want it done. So thank you. And I yield back.

Thank you. Mister Stewart or mister Gallardo? Mister Stewart?

Madam chair. Please. Madam chair, thank you very much. I've got a handful of questions and a comment. I think my first question is there's been reference to a resolution. I received a resolution by email today at 6PM on the dot. I think this meeting started at 06:10. I have an opportunity to review that in detail. Can you go over that, or is that something we're going to be taking action on in this particular meeting?

Thank you, Mr. Stewart. If a motion goes on the floor to approve the resolution, it will be read by the clerk. Mister Linghoffer, to that point.

If I may, it's my understanding that the motion in almost exactly its current form went out to the chief of staff yesterday afternoon around 03:00.

Thank you. So it has been communicated to you, mister Stewart?

Ma'am, I've received it today from the clerk at 6PM. So I'll circle up with my staff to find out when we did get a copy of that. I may when that motion comes, I may ask for a courtesy to have that table so I can have some time to review it, if that would be appropriate. But I understand, you know, if we have a majority that will move forward. I'm sure listen, Corey has done tremendous work in negotiating.

He's gotten us farther than we did in twelve months in the last six weeks to get into a resolution to this issue. And it just needs to be put to bed like it should have been done a year ago. I appreciate the other supervisor's comments about what has hung this up. And it takes to to tango in situations like this. And I understand, that we've been working diligently, but I also know that the recorder's office has been as well.

And like, I own many businesses, or I own a couple businesses, and I know that when we're doing contracts, sometimes at the last minute, you need to cross a t or dot an I, and it makes you take pause for a second to make sure you're doing the right thing. So I have empathy for the recorder's position. I have empathy for our position in that thing. But at the end of the day, the voter wants this to be over with, so we can get move forward in 2026 and have a great election. You know, I think I think at the end of the day, you know, this issue has come down to being able to have these conversations in public, right?

I know we need to get legal advice in some cases, but we have the opportunity and we've seen it today to be able to vet through a lot of the issues that are going on that I think if we would have been able to do that together, we would have been able to make that happen. At the end of the day, I think we know from the very beginning, the decision was made in late twenty twenty four between the general election and installation of the new recorder to substantially change this shared service agreement. And many of the election related duties that I think he thought he would have when he came on. That's been unacceptable to me. So my position has been consistent, straightforward.

At a minimum, recorder heaps should have been restored to those 2023 baseline, and those responsibilities he could exercise as the prior recorder did. I still don't have an understanding of why that changed the way it did. That's never been delivered to be in all of these all of this time, nor do I think it's been delivered to him. So my recommendation has been formally presented multiple times in meetings, in formal writings to the previous chair as well, and that notion had continually been rejected. If we would have gone to the 2023 SSA immediately after we started talking about it, this would have never happened.

We would have never put the voters through this agony. We would have never had to bring there would never have been court cases, and that waste of money frustrates me. That frustrates me to no end. So that's my comment for this particular meeting, madam chair, and I'm grateful for for your allowing me to share that. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Suit. Point of clarification. You said the time is 6PM. You must be in a different time zone?

Madam chair, I received it at 3PM. You're right. I am in a different time zone.

Okay. So then it

was I received it I received it when this meeting was supposed to start.

Okay.

So I have not had time to review it because I've been diligently paying attention to this meeting.

Well, thank you, supervisor. And then I will leave it up to you to align communications and priorities with your office staff going forward. The last thing I would point out I have a couple of comments, assuming you don't, Mr. Gaynor? No.

The public discussions were foreclosed by the lawsuit that was filed last year by Mr. Heap. We've had to go through our attorneys ever since. Another problem that continually came up is you have a single elected official, Mr. Heap, who determines his communications and policy directions and goes from all these different speaking forums and kind of decides there what he's going to say.

We are a board of five individuals, and we are legally required to meet and vote, come to consensus in public. It makes it very cumbersome. I am grateful for this meeting today to review the points the proposed points of the SSA. It's also my understanding we went through it in executive session last week. Any rate, lots happened. But I am confident Mr. Stewart was present.

Madam Chair, to that point.

Yes, sir.

Do you recall Madam that Chair, that's why I asked to that point. Discuss this as it relates to the SSA. As you know, executive session is privileged, so I won't go into the details of that. However, there's a resolution that landed on my desk today at 3PM Understood. May or may not include all that information. I don't know because this meeting started at 06:10. But I appreciate your your candor.

I think you meant 03:10, sir. But yes. So my my comments, I I just think it's been so well said by Vice Chair Lesko and Supervisor Galvin. Our duty is to our office. Our duty is to our voters, to our constituents, and I learned from ten years on a school board, I always talk about that, ten years in the legislature.

It's not about people, it's not about personalities, it's not about whether or not you like someone. And honestly, it's not about whether you trust someone. We are obligated as elected officials to move forward with and work with the individuals that the voters have said, we want this person to be in this office. And that is exactly what I do. So it's it's not about personalities at all.

So this item is agenda as a possible action. I am hearing consensus, but it would like motion put on the floor related to the resolution. And if it is seconded, I will ask Madam Clerk to read it.

Madam Chair, I move that we approve basically sums up what our counter proposal is. But let me rephrase that. Madam Chair, so that's more formal. Madam Chair, I move that we approve the resolution before us.

And thank you. Is there a second?

Yes, madam chair. With appreciation to our legal counsel who's been working diligently for the past year on this, I second that motion.

Thank you. Before we proceed to action or voting, madam clerk, are you prepared to read the resolution? Madam Chair, yes, I am. Please.

Thank you. For more than a year, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has attempted earnestly and in good faith to resolve the logistical and financial demands of Maricopa County recorder, Justin efforts have so far been unfruitful. The parties have been close to an agreement before. Excuse me. On 04/11/2025, after extensive in person meetings between leadership on both sides, Recorder Heap stated in writing that we seem to be in agreement on 95% and are only discussing minor details.

His chief of staff likewise told the press in April 2025 that the agreement was closed and characterized the remaining details as merely splitting hairs. After going silent in those negotiations, Recorder Heap filed a lawsuit and five emergency motions in an effort to substitute the decisions of an unelected judge for the duly elected board of supervisors. To its credit, the court has repeatedly urged the parties to settle rather than asking the judicial branch to assume control of political budgeting decisions. The board of supervisors has seriously. Shortly after the evidentiary hearing on 01/26/2026, the Board proposed settlement terms to Recorder Heat.

Recorder Heat made a written counteroffer on 01/30/2026. After significant consideration, the Board made a written counteroffer on 02/11/2026. Since then, the Board has not received from Recorder Heap a serious written response. Our representatives our representatives have repeatedly asked for his position on the pending settlement offer, but based on recent communications, it appears no particularized written counteroffer is forthcoming. In the absence of a detailed negotiated agreement with Recorder Heap, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors wishes to declare its policy on the issues raised by Recorder Heap in a manner that in a manner that respects the statutory rights of all parties, ensures smooth operations of elections in Maricopa County, and puts to rest most issues currently in litigation.

It is therefore resolved that the policy of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is as follows. Number one, IT separation. The IT systems on both the recorder and board staff rely extensively for their own elections administration tasks will be separated expeditiously consistent with the best recommendations of the outside IT consultants currently assigned to that project. Until the separation is complete, the board will a, approve and fund half of the IT positions that were housed under the recorder's office before 2025, I. E, a total of 16 positions B, continue the change advisory board practice of jointly reviewing and approving proposed changes to the IT systems and any changes affecting either side will require joint approval of the board and recorder staff serving on the change advisory board.

And c, the CIO for the recorder's office will have administrative privileges that are equal to those of the deputy CIO CIO for Maricopa County. Number two, in person early voting. In person early voting will be administered by the recorder's office on the following terms. A, site selection for early in person voting. Board staff will provide the recorder a list of recently used voting sites that would be acceptable to the board as election day voting sites.

In determining the sites used for in person early voting, the recorder may accept or modify the list of sites received from board staff and is responsible for ensuring that any early in person voting sites not on the board's list meet statutory and I'm sorry. Practicability requirements. I'm sorry about that. E. G.

ADA accessibility and are geographically distributed in a lawful manner, e. G. Not dis disfavoring a given political party or racial group. The board will authorize real estate contracts and appropriations sufficient to fund such number of the recorder's proposed sites as the board determines is consistent with prudent management of the county's financial resources and the board's statutory oversight of county interest in real property. C, Arizona revised statutes sections eleven-201A6 and eleven-two 50 one-fifty four.

B, equipment, staffing, and training. The board will furnish to the recorder's office adequate resources to operate in person early voting, including equipment and staff, to avoid the prohibitive cost of new equipment, and because there are significant financial and logistical efficiencies in sharing the same temporary election staff for in person early voting, emergency voting, and election day voting, the equipment and temporary election staff used by the recording during in person early voting must be coordinated with board staff overseeing election day voting. B one, recruiters selected jointly by the recorder and board staff shall be responsible for hiring temporary election staff in a manner consistent with general county policies. B two, temporary election staff for early in person voting will be jointly trained by the recorder and board staff. B three, the board staff experienced in equipment maintenance and troubleshooting will provide technical support for the recorder's in person early voting functions.

Before the behavior coaching and termination of all election staff must be consistent with general county policies. C, command center access. Recorder Heap and his senior staff will have badge access to the Mechtech Command Center during their early voting period. Number three, additional budget requests. To the extent recorder he believes that the discharge of his statutory duties requires additional resources, he remains free to submit supplementary budget requests to the board by following standard county procedures.

The board will consider those requests and exercise its reasoned discretion on budgetary matters. The foregoing terms are consistent with the board's most recent offer of settlement to Reporter Heat. Respect each site's statutory authorities and reflect the reality of budgeting with limited taxpayer dollars. The board hopes that it will be possible to negotiate a more detailed arrangement with the recorder's office, including topics such as jointly issued communications and standardizing operational practices within voting locations. But in the absence of such an agreement, Maricopa County will follow the foregoing policy. Thank you, madam chair.

And thank you, madam clerk. Members, you have heard the resolution that has been moved and is on the table. Any further comments? Any questions? Otherwise, we will proceed to a roll call vote.

Hearing none, madam clerk. Supervisor Gallardo.

Aye.

Vice Chair Lasko.

Madam chair, I'd like to explain my vote.

Please.

I voted for Justin Heap in the Republican primary. I have sincerely tried to work with Recorder Heap, and I will continue to sincerely try to work with Recorder Heap. As you can see from the testimony today and the questions I asked our respected attorney and his answers, we have honestly tried to negotiate with recorder heaps, and quite frankly, we have given him what he wants. I mean, that's my understanding. We have given him what he wants, but yet he has not responded, which is very frustrating to me.

I don't understand it. And so this is what we did. We're we're gonna vote on this resolution, which basically mirrors, for the most part, the last offer we gave to him. And so we're gonna live by our, you know, our our side of the bargain. And I call on recorder heaps to please come back to the table, respond to us.

This is what you do in settlements and negotiations, just respond to us so we can get this done. This is really causing a lot of chaos in the community. And it's really, really important that we work together, that the recorder's office works together with the elections department, which is under the board of supervisors, because we have to run smooth, honest elections. All of you believe in election integrity. I believe in election integrity.

When I was in Congress, I was a cosponsor and voted for the SAVE Act, which requires proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. I have fought for these things. Years ago, Arizona passed a ballot measure, and I walked door to door supporting that ballot measure, which required proof of citizenship in order to vote. I want election integrity. I have fought for it for all the years that I've been in the state legislature and in congress and in now. So I call on Justin Heap to work together with the board to accomplish that goal, And I vote aye.

Supervisor Galvin.

Thank you. Madam chair, may I explain my vote?

Please.

I'm voting aye for many reasons. First of all, I share the same passion and appreciation for election integrity as my colleagues, especially Supervisor Lesko mentioned. And as I said earlier, election duties in Arizona are bifurcated between a recorder and the Board of Supervisors. One other thing that the Board of Supervisors must do is what is called the power of the purse. They have to set the budget. They have to set the budget for all of the departments and agencies in Maricopa County. The Valley Of The Sun, we are the fourth largest region in the country. 4,600,000 people live here. We are a very important voting jurisdiction. We are a swing county and a swing state in The United States Of America.

So every two years, the eyes of the nation and the eyes of the world are upon us. In just a few months here, we're going to see not only national media, but international media here as well. So it's very important for us in terms of transparency and in terms of accountability. You should hold the Board of Supervisors accountable, but you should also hold the recorder accountable. And I can tell you after directly negotiating with recorder Justin Heap last April and leaving that meeting with a handshake agreement, that I felt that we had done it.

We had done a new agreement because frankly, every time there's a new recorder and a new board, you essentially start from scratch when you do what is called an SSA, a shared services agreement, which is to fill in the gray areas and the ambiguities of state law. Now, someone earlier said today that they would like to go back to the 2023 SSA. I am not one who likes to go to the past. I like to go to the future. I like to do what is new.

Because if we went to the 2023 SSA, then the board would take back all in person voting from the recorder. He wouldn't want that. He would reject that. And frankly, I reject that as well. And so, this resolution, there is quite substantial language here, and you'd heard it read it out loud, but I really hope everyone here in this audience, and everyone watching online, and anyone watching any day from now reads this part about that Board of Supervisors offering in person early voting, and it's clearly spelled out with logistics on why to do that.

So I categorically reject going back to a 2023 SSA, and I categorically reject any opinions that are made when someone is consistent in their inconsistency. We have to be consistent, And for the past year, we have tried very hard to get the recorder to pay attention. You heard him earlier unable to answer questions on how he's not answering an email from the chairman of the board. You heard him earlier refuse to defend and to elaborate on testimony provided in a courtroom by his chief of staff. And you have heard from our attorney that he has not responded to offers of a settlement on a lawsuit that he filed with your tax dollars.

He has also spent your tax dollars on five emergency filings in the last fifteen months. Do you want your recorder to go back to court every day for the next three months to waste your tax dollars instead of sitting here and guaranteeing that he can work with this board to do right by you? You are who we work for. I don't work for Recorder Heap We or anyone work for the voters. And so, what you've seen here is an offer on the table. And I like anyone here who's paying attention to this issue, who cares about this issue, and wants to see this issue resolved to ask Justin Heap where is his counter offer? I vote aye. Thank you.

Supervisor Stewart.

Thank you. Madam chair, I'd like to explain my vote. I appreciate the passion, which everyone is dealing with this, and I wanna commend, you know, everybody for their comments and and be clear that the 2023 SSA was a starting point for the negotiations with the recorder. I was very clear about that a few times now. So at the end of the day, we've got a resolution.

I trust that Corey has the background and the understanding of this situation tremendously. I think he also understands that my position on a handful of things as it relates to the SSA and as it relates to us getting this put to bed and moving forward. That is very important. I'm very confident that the recorder's office wants to do the same so that we can get moved forward. I am going to support this resolution simply because this needs to end.

And if this gets us one step closer to that but one question I do have for mister Liddy or somebody else in the audience that can answer this, what does this resolution when it is voted in affirmative by the board? And I know it's already got a majority. But what does that mean as it relates to the negotiations? Can anybody answer that? So if Justin doesn't agree with this, are we back to square one? What happens then? Do we have to come back and do a new resolution? Do we have to renegotiate, start from scratch? What happens? Is there any wiggle room within this resolution moving forward?

Mister Langhofer.

This resolution is something the board can act on unilaterally. You do not require it does not require the approval or even review of other officers, And that's why it omits details that were in your most recent counteroffer. Like I was saying, who's going to write the slideshow to train the poll workers? That requires some agreement. So if it requires agreement, it's not in the resolution. This you can do alone.

Thank you, mister Langhofer. So in in your professional opinion, this moves us forward, moves us down the field a little bit farther to get to a resolution.

Yes, sir.

Thank you. I'll be voting aye.

Chair Brophy McGee. Thank you. I hope you those who stayed, thank you very much. Elections are incredibly, incredibly complicated, and the planning takes months and even years. It involves a human factor.

A lot can go wrong very, very quickly. And I'm very grateful we now appear to have the information we have been requesting for quite some time. We will review this information, and it will inform our budget decisions and how we proceed to conduct the critical twenty twenty six midterm elections. In my view personally, they say it every year. This is the most critical election of our lifetimes.

This is the most critical election. So thank you, board members, for coming together to discuss and debate. I'm gonna add something I say sometimes at other meetings. Twitter doesn't make it true. It really does not. But I'm very grateful that you all came to hear, to listen, and thank you very much for staying.

Excuse me, Madam Chair, am I getting Okay.

I'm getting there, but I just was thinking that in terms of people came here thinking something was going to happen. No. And so I'm glad you came. And with that, Madam Clerk, I vote aye.

Thank you, Madam Chair. With that, we have a vote of five zero to approve the resolution. Five ayes.

So the motion passes unanimously with great thanks to all who participated in building this and the years you lost off your lives. It is that important to us. Having concluded the official business on this board agenda, this meeting is now adjourned.