Maricopa County is finally calling a truce. After more than a year of intense litigation, public mudslinging, and administrative gridlock, the county's top election officials signed a settlement in July 2026 to divide the work of running votes in Arizona’s most populous county.
If you've followed Arizona politics at all since 2020, you know the county has been a pressure cooker. This new deal, hammered out during intense closed-door mediation, attempts to draw a permanent line in the sand between the county Board of Supervisors and Recorder Justin Heap.
The agreement basically builds a wall between the two offices. It ends a massive legal headache, but it also raises a big question. Will separating the people who run our elections actually make the system more secure, or are we just looking at a recipe for future finger-pointing?
The Root of the Fight
To understand why this deal matters, you have to look at how we got here. In Arizona, election duties are split by law between the county recorder (an elected official) and the county board of supervisors.
Historically, these two entities worked side by side. In Maricopa County, they even shared staff and IT infrastructure. But things went south when former Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican who fiercely defended the integrity of the 2020 and 2022 votes, made a deal with the board to hand over certain duties and IT personnel to the board's elections department.
Enter Justin Heap. Backed by the conservative group America First Legal, Heap won the recorder's office and immediately sued the predominantly Republican Board of Supervisors in June 2025. His argument was simple: the previous agreement illegally stripped the recorder's office of its statutory duties.
The board fired back, calling his lawsuit frivolous and a waste of taxpayer cash. For a year, the two sides locked horns, creating massive uncertainty just as the 2026 midterm election cycle was warming up.
Inside the Settlement Agreement
This settlement doesn't just patch things over; it completely restructures how Maricopa County votes. The deal, mediated by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury, creates a stark division of labor.
What the Recorder's Office Controls
- Early Voting: Justin Heap’s office takes full control of early in-person voting, including setting up early voting locations and hiring staff.
- Mail-In Ballots and Drop Boxes: The recorder's office is in charge of mail voting, voter registration, signature verification, and picking where drop boxes go.
- Independent IT: The recorder gets $15 million in county funds to build a brand-new IT system completely independent of the board's system, along with funding for 24 new IT positions.
What the Board of Supervisors Controls
- Election Day: The board retains full control over physical voting on Election Day, including voting center setups and staffing.
- Emergency Voting: The board will run emergency voting (the voting that happens the weekend before an election) through 2028.
- Counting and Tabulation: Crucially, the board’s elections department will handle the actual counting and tabulation of all ballots.
Until Heap's new $15 million IT system is built, both offices will jointly manage the current shared database. If they hit another roadblock, they can't just run back to court. They have to take their disputes to Judge Coury, who will act as a special master to resolve issues quickly.
Why This Split Is a Double-Edged Sword
On paper, this deal gives both sides what they wanted. The Board of Supervisors keeps control over counting the ballots on Election Day. Heap gets back the early voting powers he argued were stolen from his office. Board Chair Kate Brophy McGee expressed relief, saying the deal finally gets them "out of the courtroom" and helps make county elections "boring again."
But not everyone is celebrating. Steve Gallardo, the lone Democrat on the Board of Supervisors, voted against the settlement. He argued that handing early voting and drop box control to Heap—who has previously raised doubts about the county's voting systems—could compromise the transparency of the process. Under this new setup, Gallardo noted, Heap now fully "owns" the early voting outcomes.
Then there’s the operational reality. Running an election in a county with over four million residents is incredibly complex. Historically, having the recorder's office and the board's election team share data and staff made things efficient. Now, they are building literal and digital walls between themselves. Spending $15 million to duplicate IT infrastructure might end the legal battle, but it remains to be seen if it actually helps the voter.
What This Means for Your Vote
If you are a voter in Maricopa County, you won't see a massive change in how you physically cast your ballot, but the timing of these changes is tricky.
Because the July 2026 primary election is already running under a temporary plan ordered by the Arizona Supreme Court, this new permanent settlement won't fully take effect until the November 2026 general election.
Here is what you need to keep in mind as the general election approaches:
- Check Your Registration Early: With the recorder's office getting new IT systems and staff, make sure your voter registration details are active and correct well before October.
- Drop Box Locations Might Shift: Because Heap now has the authority to select drop box locations, keep an eye on the official county map. Your usual drop-off spot might move.
- Expect Two Separate Systems: If there is a glitch on Election Day, it might take longer to figure out who is responsible. Election Day sites are the board’s job; early mail ballots dropped off on Election Day fall under a mix of responsibilities.
This settlement ends the courtroom drama, but the real test is just beginning. The success of this split custody arrangement won't be measured by legal briefs, but by how smoothly Maricopa County processes millions of ballots this November.
