Arizona AG rips Maricopa County election official over handling of non-citizen voting claims

An attorney from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes’ (D) office had to threaten Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap, a known election denier, with legal action in order for him to hand over names of dozens of voters he claims are non-citizens. 

Heap is known for spreading false information about voter fraud and Arizona’s 2020 election results. When he announced in February that he had uncovered the names of 137 non-citizens registered to vote, Mayes’ office reminded him of his legal obligations to refer the names to her staff. 

However, Heap just turned the names over today, as first reported by Votebeat, after Mayes’ office sent two letters reprimanding him for failing to follow legal procedures that say he should have turned them over to her office within 35 days. To find the names, Heap used the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, which is known to flagging eligible citizen voters as non-citizens.  

This is just the latest example of Heap’s mishandling of elections administration processes, a pattern for which he’s been accused of working to undermine voter confidence.

After Heap’s February announcement about the non-citizen voters discovery, he told Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) in a letter that he had placed their registrations under “Not Eligible” voting status, and that they had until Election Day to provide proof of their citizenship. 

This, and Heap’s February press statement, prompted Mayes’ office to inform him in a strongly worded April 2 letter that by law he should’ve cancelled the registrations after 35 days and referred the names to both the attorney general’s and the Maricopa County attorney’s office (MCAO) for investigation. By that point Heap claimed he had found 207 names of non-citizens registered to vote.

“Our elections are far too important for you to refuse to provide the names of suspected non-citizen voters,” wrote Nicholas Klingerman, the criminal division chief counsel for Mayes’ office. “You must refer the 207 voters to the Attorney General’s Office now. If you fail to do so by May 22, 2026, the Attorney General’s Office will take all appropriate steps to ensure you faithfully execute Arizona’s laws.”

Heap responded on April 10, telling the state attorney general that criminal referrals would be “premature” – though admitting that he sent criminal referrals to the county attorney’s office, which prompted an even sharper rebuke. 

“At this point, your insistence that you are following the law is wrong at best and purposefully misleading at worst,” wrote Klingerman. “Moreover, your statement that criminal referrals would not be appropriate despite having acknowledged the requirement to refer these individuals to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office and making a criminal referral to MCAO, suggests your intent is to mislead.”

It wasn’t Heap’s only clash with Arizona election officials this week. For months now, Heap has been embroiled in a legal beef with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors over their work to secure early voting drop boxes ahead of the state’s upcoming primary elections.

The beef came to a boiling point this week when Heap’s lawyer sent the board a legal threat to stop their work around the drop boxes. 

However, Attorney General Mayes weighed in today about the matter saying, “Justin Heap is wrong about drop boxes. He should immediately work with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in good faith to ensure a well run election.”