Maricopa County supervisor rips Justin Heap’s staff over ballot scanner removal ahead of midterms

The chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors said a recorder’s office employee removed a ballot scanner and a handful of ballot envelopes from a secured facility during a live election count in March, rendering the machine permanently unusable.

“It’s a hideous, I should say, a very disturbing chain of custody issue,” Maricopa County Board Supervisor Kate Brophy McGee told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show Tuesday.

The situation has spiraled into a criminal investigation and an emergency court filing by Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap.

“The approach to the whole thing is very ham-handed and unprofessional,” Brophy McGee said. “I simply don’t know why it happened.”

The dispute centers on two ballot envelope scanners used to process affidavit envelopes, including provisional ballots.

While the recorder’s office owns the machine, they were being housed in the county’s Maricopa County Tabulation & Election Center. In early March, a recorder’s office employee tried to remove the machines.

Brophy McGee said the scanner is now worthless for its intended purpose.

“He approached it in this manner and rendered the machine unusable regardless of who owns it, regardless of who uses it. It cannot be used for elections anymore, and that’s one of the things we had to do as follow-up,” she said.

She explained the machine is sensitive election equipment with strict handling requirements.

“When you’re involved in something as sensitive as elections and you’re using machines, even though these are after-action affidavit ballot scanning machines, envelope scanning machines, you cannot allow those machines to be compromised. So there’s actually protocols in place if they wanted to move it over to their facility and use it there that they didn’t follow.”

Brophy McGee added the employee also removed ballot envelopes from the facility, deepening her concern.

“We don’t know what happened to those envelopes or the ballots in them while he was gone,” she said. “The elections department conducted an after-action total count of ballots and envelopes. That matched. But we have no idea what happened, and he will not cooperate with us in an investigation.”

She called the breach of ballot security a serious failing.

“It’s a very disturbing chain of custody issue,” Brophy McGee said. “As my colleague Debbie Lesko said on Twitter last night, if Adrian Fontes had done it, all hell would have rained down upon him and his offices. It’s very unprofessional. It is not how you conduct elections. It is not how you handle ballots, and this apparently is the recorder’s chief information officer. They should know better.”

Will this deepening rift impact the upcoming primary election?

Asked whether the deepening rift could affect the upcoming primary election, Brophy McGee expressed concern.

“I am terribly concerned,” she said. “Voters don’t care about the spats and things. They want the election to work. We want the election to work. And I think in his heart of hearts, Mr. Heap wants the elections to work. What we need to focus on is that part.”

She said county staffs on both sides had been cooperating and had reached agreements on logistics including early voting sites. That changed recently when Heap’s attorney canceled all those agreements and said they’re null and void.

Heap is represented by America First Legal.

“We’re going to have great elections, one way or another,” promised Brophy McGee.

Heap makes an emergency motion of his own

In an emergency motion filed June 7 in Maricopa County Superior Court, Heap’s attorneys said the board referred recorder’s Office staff for criminal investigation “for the act of attempting to retrieve the Recorder’s Office’s own property.”

On June 6, deputies with the Pinal County Sheriff’s office appeared unannounced at the home of recorder’s Office Chief Information Officer Bryan Colby to inform him he was under investigation for theft, according to court records.

Heap’s filing says the two scanners were purchased entirely with recorder’s Office funds in 2023 for Early Voting Services and that no transfer-of-asset form was ever filed to move them to the Elections Department.

He accused the board of doing exactly what it had accused him of: targeting election workers.

“For weeks, the board has attempted to convince the public that I somehow intend to seek criminal penalties against election workers for performing their duties,” Heap said in a statement. “That claim is a lie, and they know it. Yet, while making those false accusations, the board was quietly pursuing criminal investigations and penalties against election workers employed by the recorder’s office.”

Early ballots for the 2026 primary election are scheduled to be mailed June 24. The primary is July 21.

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