What the Heap v. Galvin settlement means for Metro Phoenix elections

The July 14 mediated settlement in Heap v. Galvin did not end Maricopa County's election fight so much as redraw it: Recorder Justin Heap now controls voter registration, early in-person voting, mail voting, and drop boxes, while the Board of Supervisors keeps precinct boundaries, ballot preparation, Election Day polling place operations, and certification, with Judge Christopher Coury standing by as special master if the split breaks down. [1]

What changed on paper

At the operational level, the split is blunt and specific: [1]

• Recorder Heap: voter registration, early in-person voting, mail voting, and drop boxes
• Board of Supervisors: precinct boundaries, ballot preparation, Election Day polling place operations, and certification

The settlement works only if those assignments are more than labels. If Heap and the supervisors cannot agree on how a task should be carried out, the dispute goes to a special master framework overseen by Judge Coury, and any further appeal reaches the Arizona Supreme Court only at the court's discretion. That is a real fallback, but it is still a litigation path, not a clean administrative handoff. [1]

Why the case got there

The reason the settlement matters is that Arizona law already divides county election duties between the recorder and the board of supervisors, and this case was about where that boundary sits when one side starts claiming the other's personnel, systems, and equipment. [3]

The fight began in June 2025, after the Board of Supervisors hired a temporary elections director, then moved through a Superior Court ruling on April 16, a Court of Appeals stay, and the Arizona Supreme Court's July 7 decision siding with Heap and vacating that stay. The trial court had already found that the board exceeded its statutory authority by seizing the recorder's personnel, systems, and equipment, so the high court's move gave the settlement its immediate pressure point. [1][2][3]

What is still open

The caution is simple: the settlement does not apply to the July 21 primary, so the first election to run under this framework was not covered by the settlement itself. That leaves the central question unanswered: whether the split survives real contest conditions, under time pressure, when a missing handoff stops being a legal abstraction and starts becoming a ballot problem. Maricopa County now has a bifurcated administration model that is legally paused, not operationally erased, and either side still has a plausible route back to court before the November 3 general election if the arrangement proves unworkable. [1][2]

References

1. Maricopa County's election dispute is finally over — at least on paper — Votebeat Arizona, July 15, 2026
2. Arizona Supreme Court sides with Maricopa County Recorder in election dispute — AZFamily, July 8, 2026
3. Arizona Maricopa County Recorder Election Duties Dispute — Democracy Docket