Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes provided legal cover to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in its dispute with Recorder Justin Heap over the potential of committing “ballot harvesting” crimes by picking up ballots from drop boxes.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes says Supervisors in Maricopa County are following state election rules by using ballot drop boxes in the upcoming primary election.
Heap’s lawyer, James Rogers, warned the Republican-controlled board May 20 not to approve a plan to scatter drop boxes across the county for the July 21 primary, arguing that was Heap’s prerogative to select “early voting locations.”
Anyone collecting ballots from the drop boxes, Rogers wrote, could be prosecuted under the state’s felony crime of ballot harvesting. Four of the board’s five members reacted angrily to the missive and approved a resolution for drop boxes anyway.
On May 22, Mayes, a Democrat, sided with the board.
“Justin Heap is wrong about drop boxes,” she said in a statement posted on social media. “He should immediately work with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in good faith to ensure a well run election.”
People are also reading…
In a two-page letter of her own, Mayes said the board was following Arizona election rules in place since at least 2019 and ridiculed Rogers’ legal logic.
“As a matter of common sense, a drop box is not an early voting location. It is simply a place to deposit a voted and sealed early ballot packet,” she wrote. “One cannot obtain a ballot and fill it out at a drop box like one can at an early voting location.
“Indeed, if Recorder Heap’s counsel were correct, every mailbox in the state would be an early voting location, and every mail carrier could be accused of illegally harvesting ballots.”
Mayes ended with a plea.
“For the sake of election stability, the time to seek a departure from established practice is not now.”
The drop box controversy is only the latest issue in the board’s longstanding battles with Heap, a Republican.
Last month, Heap won a lawsuit claiming the board usurped his duties when it revised an election duties-related agreement with his predecessor, Republican Stephen Richer, in October 2024, months before Heap took office.
The board maintains that dispute, relating to information technology workers and a database used to administer elections, was wrongly decided and is appealing. In the meantime, the board and Heap remain in a state of distrust.
Supervisor Thomas Galvin, a Republican, said four members of the board were determined to exercise their election-related obligations and would not be intimidated by the Rogers letter.
“If anyone tries to put handcuffs on those (election) volunteers,” Galvin said, “the four of us will be the first ones to step in front of them and say, ‘Take us.’”
Supervisor Steve Gallardo, a Democrat, said matters such as precinct locations and ballot drop boxes have been routine in years past. He called Heap a “coward” who “wants the 2026 election to fail.”
For his part, Heap, who rejected a last-minute invitation to attend the board’s meeting, sent a public statement accusing the board of “political theater.”
“Rather than engage in serious discussion, the Board instead chose surprise tactics and public spectacle,” he said.
The drop box controversy comes in an increasingly tense election environment.
Heap rode to office in 2024 as an election denier who called for stricter administration of elections in line with President Donald Trump, who has falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged” and “stolen.”
The Maricopa County board repeatedly has been at the center of election denialists, first over the 2020 results showing former President Joe Biden beat Trump in the county, and also in 2022 for instant tabulation problems that delayed some Election Day counting.
Trump’s Justice Department is now pursuing a criminal investigation of the 2020 Arizona elections with no clear indication of what potential crimes may have been committed.
Trump is pressing to enlist federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Postal Service, in screening voting eligibility in this year’s elections. Trump’s critics view it as part of an effort to undermine the midterm elections through voter suppression tactics.
Since Trump reentered the White House, Mayes has repeatedly sued to halt his administration’s agenda, from challenging an end to birthright citizenship and seeking to unfreeze federal grants during a government shutdown.
Rogers works with the America First Legal Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by Stephen Miller, who is a close Trump adviser.
Rogers’ letter maintained that Arizona law only allows recorders to receive early ballots, not boards of supervisors. “Only the Recorder possesses the statutory authority to designate the locations for drop boxes and to establish them,” he wrote.
“These are serious felonies. The Board should not proceed with a resolution that exposes its members and employees to criminal prosecution simply because it wishes to assert control over a function that the Legislature has assigned to the Recorder.”
