Latest news with #MaricopaCountyRecorder
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Mesa councilwoman will face recall election
The recall election for Mesa City Councilwoman Julie Spilsbury is a go. City Council is expected on Tuesday, July 8, to vote on a resolution calling for a special election Nov. 4 with a mail-in ballot for voters living in council District 2, which encompasses central and south-central Mesa. Maricopa County Recorder's office verified 3,858 of the 5,235 signatures on the recall petition. The required number of signatures to trigger an election is 3,070. It will be the first recall election for a Mesa Council member in almost 50 years. Spilsbury said she will not resign and intends to fight for her seat. 'I have not done anything wrong,' the two-term councilwoman said. 'I haven't done anything illegal. 'We will be anxiously waiting to see who files a statement of interest, to find out who I will be running against.' The candidate filing period is 60 to 90 days prior to the recall election, according to city spokesman Kevin Christopher. 'The 60-to-90-day timeframe calculates to be Aug. 6 to Sept. 5,' he said in an email. JoAnne Robbins, who filed the recall petition, declined to comment until after council takes action July 8. The petition cited Spilsbury's votes - hiking council members' salary, allowing the purchase and renovation of a former hotel for an emergency homeless shelter and raising the city's utility rates as the reasons to remove her. Spilsbury noted that two of those votes – the pay boost, which was a cost of living increase, and the utility hike, which averaged out to $5 more a month – were approved unanimously. And while the homeless hotel was a split vote, Spilsbury said that it was a good use of money to protect Mesa's most vulnerable population – children, women, seniors and veterans. 'That was not a controversial vote,' said Spilsbury, adding she will continue 'to speak up for kindness and compassion.' Spilsbury contended that the reasons for kicking her out of office are a ruse, noting that the recall was funded and organized by Turning Point USA. Its founder is Charlie Kirk, a conservative political activist. Spilsbury said it'll cost the city thousands of dollars to run a special election orchestrated by an outside group. 'Nobody should be spending all this money to take out a council member for what?' she said. 'There's a 5-2 Republican majority on council. It's not like I'm a threat. 'I think people in Mesa are not OK with an outside group telling us how to run our city. I think that will resonate with people.' The recall is entirely a grassroots effort, insisted Matthew Martinez, a field strategist with Chase the Vote, Turning Point Action, which targets and brings out the conservative voting base in elections. Martinez accompanied Robbins to turn in the recall petitions. Until a candidate steps up to challenge Spilsbury in the special election, Martinez say it was too soon to say if the group will continue to provide its support. Supporters of the recall effort against Councilwoman Julie Spilsbury posed with empty boxes when the sole box with petitions for the action was submitted to the Mesa City Clerk earlier this year. The boxes were an apparent effort to demonstrate the size of support recall organizers had garnered. 'I just hope that whoever it is, it's someone who is not going to go against the constituents, lie and break the bylaws,' said Martinez. He said that Splisbury, a Republican, used her 'city, title and name' to endorse Democratic candidates. 'Julie was endorsing Ruben Gallego, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and doing TV ads with Ruben Gallego, using her city council title,' he said. 'That is in direct violation of the city bylaws, of the city council charter.' The city's Ethics Handbook for Elected Officials prohibits elected officials from using public resources for political campaigning, they can't use their office to advance private interests and they can't engage in political campaigning at city meetings or city buildings. Martinez also blamed Spilsbury for a Mesa's ordinance, which he claims 'allows men into women's locker rooms and bathrooms.' The council, including Spilsbury, voted in 2021 to approve a non-discrimination ordinance, which provides protection from discrimination and ensures equal access to goods, services, employment, and housing within the Mesa city limits. Protected bases include race, age, disability, sex, gender identity and marital status. Spilsbury said the council is doing some great things and now she'll have to spend time campaigning again – fundraising, knocking on doors and other outreach. She handily beat her opponent in the primary last summer, capturing nearly 66% or 8,120 of the votes. 'I have a lot of support across the city and across the state,' Spilsbury said. 'But it's like running an entirely new campaign. 'I hate to do it again after just raising $60,000 last summer for the election. It's very frustrating I have to do it again. I just want to do my job.'
Yahoo
28-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
"I got pretty revved up": Voters angry over address confirmation letters from Maricopa County
The Brief The Maricopa County Recorder's Office sent out about 83,000 erroneous letters to voters, asking them to confirm their address. The office says the letters were sent due to a glitch from a third-party vendor and should be disregarded by voters. A new, corrected letter will be sent to all affected voters sometime next week. PHOENIX - The Maricopa County Recorder's Office is pledging to fix a big glitch. Tens of thousands of voters received strange letters in the mail asking if they had moved, when they had not. The letters then asked them to fix the mistake. What we know Approximately 83,000 of these letters were sent out on county recorder letterhead and started hitting mailboxes this week – out of the blue. It said Arizona had received information that these people had obtained a driver's license or identification card from another state and no longer lived at the address that matches their voter registration file. And then proof was required, like a birth certificate or passport proving their current address. What they're saying All, or most of these letters were sent to people who hadn't moved, or got another ID, like this man in Fountain Hills. "You need to admit right away what happened. What you're doing to take care of it, you need to get ahead of the problem. That way you have the problem. " On June 27, the office admitted it was an error and blamed a third-party vendor. "I got pretty revved up," said one man who did not want to be identified. He was angry after getting the letter from the county asking if he had moved and then demanding proof that he had not. "What gets my gall is that I've been a resident of Arizona since 1972," he said. "I joined the Arizona National Guard in '81. Served my country for 20 years all over the world.. came back with a ton of injuries. And I have to prove my citizenship because of your glitch?" The backstory The letter stated that Arizona had received information that these people had obtained a driver's license or identification card from another state and no longer lived at the address that matches their voter registration file. It then requested proof, such as a birth certificate or passport, to prove their current address. "They don't need to do anything right now. Disregard the letter," said Janine Petty, director of voter registration. The county quickly admitted the mistake, blaming a third-party vendor error, but wouldn't go much further. "So the voters should disregard the letter that they received and wait for the corrected letter," Petty said. What's next The new corrected letter is expected to start to arrive sometime next week. But for this man, the damage is already done. "If there was a fire and all the records were burned, I get it, but it's not my job as a taxpayer to fix the bureaucratic glitch," he said. The recorder's office would not say what the new letter will say or if the original letter was in any way targeting a specific group, area or party affiliation. It would only confirm that the new letters would come at no cost to the taxpayer. "Today, the Maricopa County Recorder's Office (MCRO) issued the following statement regarding the voter correspondence that was erroneously sent by a third-party vendor for Maricopa County. Yesterday, the MCRO was made aware of voter correspondence sent in error by a third-party vendor for Maricopa County. No voter records were affected due to this error. This error was not caused by internal mistakes at the MCRO. The vendor has taken full responsibility for the mistake, and has already begun mailing out the corrected correspondence to the affected voters at their own expense, so there will be no additional cost to the taxpayers. The approved correspondence was for voters needing to provide Documentary Proof of Citizenship (DPOC) related to the MVD glitch. The 90-day period for return of DPOC begins on the date the notice is sent out. Due to the vendor error, the operative date for the start of the 90-day period will be the date that the corrected correspondence is sent to each voter. If voters have questions, please contact our office at 602-506-1511 or voterinfo@
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Election observers can view signature verification process, says Maricopa County Recorder
The Brief Changes are coming to Maricopa County voting law, starting with the May 2025 election. Recorder Justin Heap says election observers will be allowed to view the signature verification process. PHOENIX - Maricopa County recorder, Justin Heap, announced key changes to the signature verification process for voters on the Active Early Voter List. Beginning with an election in May, no party identification or personal identifying data will be displayed on the signature verification screen. The backstory In the past, this wasn't allowed because of privacy concerns. "Previously, voters were assured by election officials that no party or personally identifying data was available to signature verifiers," said Heap. "In my review of our election processes I have discovered this was not the case. Signature verification workers who scrolled down the page would still see this information on the scans of older ballots." What they're saying Heap says since the data will no longer be displayed, election observers will now be allowed to view the signature verification process and the change should increase trust in the final result. "Removing that data will accomplish two important things: it brings bi-partisan observers back into the room to scrutinize the process and ensures that verifiers do not know the party affiliation of the voters whose signatures they are verifying," stated Heap. "This will be the first of many commonsense improvements we will be making to ensure that future elections in Maricopa County are run in a trustworthy, transparent, and efficient manner." The Source Maricopa County Recorder's office
