Arizona’s midterm elections begin to highlight the controversial electoral system in the largest county

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona is expected to see at least two competitive races for the U.S. House of Representatives in November while Democrats will defend their seats for governor, attorney general and secretary of state.

However, until now, it has been the office that administers elections in the state’s most populous county that has hogged much of the spotlight.

Republican Justin Hipp is an election skeptic who will oversee his first statewide election in Maricopa County. He has been embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with the county Board of Supervisors over election procedures, instituted a controversial system to verify signatures on mail-in ballots, and ran voter records through a federal noncitizen verification system despite questions about its accuracy. Heap has also made overtures to the Trump administration in its pursuit of voter and election records.

His actions sparked heated comments from members of this council, which divides election oversight with Hipp’s office, and rebukes from the Attorney General and Secretary of State. This week’s ruling in the legal case will give Heap more power over election processes.

The unrest has created an air of uncertainty about how the midterm elections will be conducted in a county that has been a regular target of election conspiracy theorists and is pivotal in determining statewide races in one of the nation’s most important political battlegrounds.

State Sen. Loren Coby, a Democrat who sits on the Legislative Elections Committee and represents part of Phoenix, said the dispute between the registrar and the county board is creating confusion and mistrust.

“We are one of the largest counties in the country, and we have all of our election directors fighting right now,” she said. “So I imagine if you’re a voter, you’re very confused and concerned.”

The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, which Hipp runs, did not provide a response to questions despite multiple requests for comment. Hipp issued a statement in response to the court’s ruling, saying it “restores the authority and resources necessary to my office to do its work.”

Power struggle and heated accusations

Heap took office after defeating the incumbent in the 2024 Republican primary. He quickly began challenging the Board of Supervisors, which is majority Republican.

He filed a lawsuit against them in June 2025 with the support of America First Legal, a conservative group founded by Stephen Miller, now deputy chief of staff at the White House. The suit accused the board of negotiating an agreement with Hebb’s predecessor to move money, IT staff and some election functions away from his office, including managing ballot drop boxes, processing early-arriving ballots and identifying locations used for early voting.

Read more: A judge sides with Arizona’s elections official in a ruling that could affect voting in the midterm elections

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge ended up largely siding with Hebb in the case. Board President Kate Brophy-McGee said the board would consider the appeal.

Before the ruling, moderators described Hebb’s lawsuit as frivolous and “full of lies” as part of a power struggle that had at times boiled over. A budget meeting in January turned heated, with Republican Supervisor Thomas Galvin saying Hipp “continues to lie over and over again.” In a statement issued afterwards, Heap denied the incident and described it as a “juvenile tantrum”.

The board proposed a settlement earlier this year but did not receive a counteroffer from Heap.

A new way to verify voter signatures

Once in office, Heap changed the process for verifying voters’ signatures on their mail-in ballot envelopes.

The new procedure involves workers from both political parties reviewing signatures and more workers conducting additional reviews of signatures deemed questionable, Hipp told the board during a meeting last fall.

But some elected officials and observers say they worry the new policy could lead to eligible ballots being rejected. Galvin said the rejection rate in local elections scheduled for November 2025 was “huge” compared to previous elections.

He said he is concerned that the new signature verification process is a “looming disaster” and expressed concern that many people “who voted legally and validly last November saw their ballots rejected for arbitrary reasons.”

Heap says the new policy is faster and safer. “In the end, the signatures either match or they don’t,” he told the council.

Verified nationality, but accuracy is the question

Heap has promoted his office’s use of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE system to identify people on voter rolls who may not be citizens.

The office said that it found through the system “137 registered voters who are not American citizens” and that 60 of them “voted in previous elections.” The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office said it received 207 names from the Registrar’s Office for voting eligibility review.

It is rare for people who are not U.S. citizens to vote, and the SAVE system has been criticized by some election officials and experts who say it often identifies eligible voters as noncitizens. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, said in an interview that the program was not reliable.

“The SAVE system is completely inaccurate,” he said. “You can’t rely on that to remove someone from the voter rolls or to initiate expungement proceedings.”

The Registrar’s Office announced its use of the SAVE system on the same day Heap attended a news conference outside Phoenix, where then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was promoting a bill in Congress that would require documented proof of citizenship to register and vote.

Fontes said his office has not received any additional information from the registrar about the alleged noncitizen voters and that the timing of the announcement makes it seem like it “grabs more headlines than anything without more information.”

Fears of undermining confidence in the elections

Hipp’s presence at Noem’s February press conference wasn’t the only instance in which the recorder appeared close to the Trump administration.

Correspondence obtained from the Registrar’s Office through a public records request shows a willingness to defer to the U.S. Department of Justice. This year, the department seized ballots and other records related to the 2020 election from Fulton County, Georgia, which includes Atlanta.

Meanwhile, the FBI requested similar Maricopa County records from the state Senate president.

Harmeet Dhillon, who oversees the department’s civil rights division, wrote to Fontes, Hebb and county officials in September seeking to preserve county election records. Hipp responded the next day, stressing in his letter that his office was “committed to fully cooperating with the Department of Justice as it conducts its investigation,” before adding: “We share your goal of preserving the integrity of the election.”

As it did in other states, the department sued Arizona months later for not complying with its request for detailed voter information.

The state’s attorney general, Democrat Chris Mayes, told a local media outlet that Hebb is “trying to undermine Arizonans’ confidence in our election system” and warned him against submitting voter lists to the federal government.

As the state’s July primary approaches, some observers worry that Hipp’s dispute with the board and other actions could undermine public confidence in the election.

“Voters should feel that this county is well run, and that the recorder and the Board of Supervisors have every voter’s best interest at heart,” said Penny Sheoran, state advocacy chair for the League of Women Voters of Arizona. “And that’s tense with this dispute.”