Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap’s plan to mail ballots to voters who did not request them in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District primary election has some fellow Republicans speaking out.
Heap, a MAGA-aligned Republican who has previously spread conspiracies about mail-in ballots, announced this week that he would mail ballots to some 57,000 voters. Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) called for a special election in the district following the death of longtime Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) earlier this year.
His election plan included a proposal to mail ballots to registered voters who live in remote areas more than a two-hour drive from an early-voting location. The proposal will mail ballots regardless of whether they have been requested.
Heap’s chief of staff, Sam Stone, said the plan had been vetted by the Maricopa County attorney’s office. Still, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which shares election responsibilities with the county recorder, raised questions about that portion of Heap’s plan.
Maricopa County Republican Supervisors Tom Galvin, Kate Brophy McGee, and Debbie Lesko questioned its legality and said it could create a bad precedent.
“I was surprised and disappointed to see that the recorder offered this option,” Galvin said. “I do believe that this opens up a can of worms. I have seen this county repeatedly get attacked from folks on the outside regarding mail-in ballots, regarding election security.”
Heap and the board of supervisors now remain at odds about how to dole out responsibilities in the special election.
Democrat Adrian Fontes, a former Maricopa County recorder who is now the state’s secretary of state, tried to enact something similar in 2020 by mailing ballots to all Democratic voters in Maricopa County for the primary election due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fontes’s efforts were quickly shut down by then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican.
“I don’t understand why Recorder @azjustinheap is doubling down on mailing ballots to voters that don’t request them,” Lesko posted on social media. “County Attorney Mitchell said it’s illegal. Democrat Adrian Fontes tried to do this and was blocked in court.”
WHAT COMES NEXT FOR GRIJALVA’S SOLIDLY BLUE ARIZONA SEAT
Lesko said the board sent Heap an elections agreement proposal on April 12 but that members had not yet heard back. The primary is being held on July 15.
The majority of the heavily Democratic district is in Pima County, but Heap oversees a small fraction of Maricopa County voters who are in the district.