MAGA election official in Arizona tries to downplay disturbing reports about poll workers

With Election Day approaching, backlash continues to mount against the top election official in Arizona’s most populous county — a MAGA loyalist who has used his office to promote election conspiracy theories and empower conservative activists.

I’ve homed in on Maricopa County’s Justin Heap in recent months as many Arizonans — including many of his fellow Republican election officials in the Phoenix-area county — have sounded the alarm on the county recorder’s push to give himself and Donald Trump’s allies more power to intervene in Maricopa’s electoral processes. More than half of Arizona’s residents live in the county, meaning any chicanery that occurs there could significantly affect key state races next week.

Some GOP candidates in Arizona think their chances in next week’s elections are bleak, potentially giving someone like Heap — who has encouraged the Trump administration to intervene in the state’s election processes — incentive to meddle.

Amid such concerns, the American Civil Liberties Union’s Arizona chapter has flagged disturbing reports of voters being falsely told by poll workers that they needed to show ID to drop off their mail-in ballots. Arizona law states that voters can show ID when they drop off ballots if they want to speed up the tabulation process, but doing so isn’t required.

In the video below, you can see Heap pushing back against the ACLU’s claim during a sit-down with a Phoenix television station — only to be told that one of the outlet’s reporters experienced the very same thing when trying to drop off a ballot.

Recorder @azjustinheap contradicts himself yet again.

In an interview with a local station, he said pollworkers were not instructing voters they must present ID to vote.

(This is against the law, voters still have the option to drop ballots for themselves and family members in… https://t.co/vwC216PuNE

— The AZ – abc15 – Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) October 30, 2026

Earlier this year, Heap stood alongside then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a Phoenix press conference, where she said her department — which under Trump has served as a vector for white supremacist propaganda — would ensure that “we have the right people voting.”

It’s rhetoric one might expect to have heard during the height of the Jim Crow era — and Heap was right there. Which is to say, he has given Arizonans no reason to take him at his word on anything he says regarding election integrity.

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