By Jen Fifield | Votebeat
Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap has released text messages that he exchanged with county supervisors on his personal phone that show how he privately pressured them for more control over elections.
Heap provided the messages to Votebeat on Sept. 12 in response to an April public records request, after his office initially said that he didn’t discuss county business on his personal phone, and then said the texts he exchanged were unrecoverable.
The dozens of texts he released confirm previous reporting about how he privately pressured supervisors to support him as he tried to negotiate for greater control over the county’s elections.
Although the messages provide little new information about that effort, the monthslong, contentious process to get them shows that Heap, who is in charge of keeping property records such as deeds as well as voter registration records, at least initially failed to properly maintain key public records related to his oversight of elections.
