Maricopa County Supervisors Send Resolution Disenfranchising Voters to Recorder Over SSA Battle

Summary: Maricopa Board of Supervisors (BOS) passed a non-binding "Resolution in Lieu of SSA" on Feb 18, 2026, mirroring the 2024 deal that stripped Recorder Heap of statutory duties. It offers a weak negotiation baseline, rejects Agilis sorting machine purchase needed for timely provisional/proof-of-citizenship ballot processing, and keeps BOS control over Recorder's statutory duties—potentially disenfranchising voters.

Recorder Justin Heap was in the meeting room during the SSA discussion, but was banned from participating by the BOS. Vice-Chair kept calling for Heap to "come back to the table," while prohibiting his participation in the discussion.

MARICOPA COUNTY – Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (BOS) escalated its year-long power struggle with elected Recorder Justin Heap on February 18, 2026, by unanimously passing a “Resolution and Policy in Lieu of SSA.” The resolution offers a framework for a baseline of negotiations in lieu of an SSA offer.

Critics argue the move effectively disenfranchises voters by locking in the same limited operational structure that has already strained election processes and by refusing to fund critical equipment needed to process every legal ballot on time.

The 2024 SSA and Stripped Duties

The 2024 Shared Services Agreement (SSA), pushed through by the prior Recorder administration and lame-duck supervisors just before Heap took office in January 2025, transferred control of key election functions away from the Recorder—the elected official Arizona statutes assign primary responsibility for voter registration, early ballot issuance, and provisional ballot processing.

Heap has fought in court to restore the statutory baseline duties voters expected him to exercise when they elected him.

What the Resolution Actually Offers

The resolution the BOS approved provides only partial IT staff sharing, joint hiring for temporary workers, and conditional access to early voting sites—while retaining final budgetary and operational control with the BOS. It also adds layers of bureaucracy to IT improvements, causing innovation to secure elections to come to a screeching halt. Notably, it contains no commitment to purchase the Agilis high-speed ballot sorting machine Heap’s office has repeatedly requested. Emails show the BOS offer rejects the Agilis machine purchase.

Why the Agilis Sorter Matters

Court testimony from January 26, 2026, made clear why that machine is essential. Without the Agilis sorter (which can process thousands of ballots per hour and integrate directly with the voter database), the office cannot reliably finish processing provisional ballots—including those from voters who provide proof of citizenship by the 7 p.m. Election Day deadline. Ballots left unprocessed by certification deadlines result in legal votes being excluded from the final tally. Court testimony, which EZCIVICS.org covered previously, shows voters in the 2024 General Election were likely disenfranchised from their full ballot.

Emails Prove the BOS Reneged on Its Own Offer

While Chair Debbie Lesko repeatedly claimed “the ball is in the Recorder’s court” and insisted the BOS had made a “reasonable” offer, emails released by Heap’s communications team show otherwise. On February 17, Heap’s attorney James Rogers accepted Lesko’s public February 16 offer in writing and proposed putting the agreement in binding Rule 80 form the same day so the parties could settle immediately and work out SSA details later. The BOS refused to memorialize it and reneged on the offer in the February 18 resolution vote.

"Political Theater" at the February 18 Meeting

Attendees at the February 18 meeting described it as "pure political theater." While Recorder Justin Heap was put under oath for the hearing, none of the supervisors or the BOS attorney were held to the same standard.

Lesko and BOS attorney Langhofer referenced Lesko’s X post but claimed there had been “no serious written response”—completely omitting that Heap had already accepted the offer.

The BOS refused to cancel the A.R.S. § 11-253 removal proceedings against Heap, keeping the threat of removal hanging over him.

Heap stood in the back of the room the entire time but was banned from participating in the SSA discussion.

The resolution itself is non-binding and spins the same stripped-down 2024 terms as a “win” for Heap. It keeps joint approvals on IT (no real separation of systems), gives the BOS ultimate control over early voting despite the Recorder “administering” it, and makes no real commitment to return the $5 million in funding the BOS previously took from the Recorder’s office. A chart released with the emails shows the resolution still hands the “middle finger cactus” (BOS) control over duties the statutes assign to the Recorder (the torch).

Pattern of Power Grabs Over Elected Offices

This is not the BOS’s first power grab over an elected office. In prior years, supervisors used hiring and salary authority to effectively take over the Maricopa County Attorney’s Civil Division by hiring away attorneys at higher pay when the elected CA would not rubber-stamp their decisions.

Irony of Disenfranchisement Accusations

During the same meeting, supervisors accused Heap of “disenfranchising voters” through improved signature verification processes. Former attorney for Maricopa County, Rachel Alexander called out the irony: the very board now claiming concern for disenfranchisement is the one refusing restored statutory duties and the equipment needed to process every legal provisional ballot—including proof-of-citizenship submissions by the 7 p.m. deadline.

What Arizona Voters Expect

Arizona voters expect elected officials—not supervisors rewriting statutes via non-binding resolutions—to handle the functions the law assigns them. When supervisors strip statutory duties from the Recorder, block tools proven to enable timely processing of provisional and proof-of-citizenship ballots, and keep the threat of removal over his head, the result is exactly what the BOS claims to oppose: legal voters potentially disenfranchised because their ballots cannot be processed in time for certification.

Citizens can review the full email folder and resolution exhibits released by the Recorder’s communications team HERE, the court filings in the ongoing SSA litigation, and the February 18 meeting transcript on maricopa.gov. Election integrity requires restoring statutory authority to the elected Recorder and equipping his office to process every legal ballot—before the 2026 primary and general elections.

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