Connect with us

Politics

Big Win! Maricopa Superior Court Judge Orders Board of Supervisors to Restore Key Election Functions to Recorder’s Office

Published

2 days ago

on

Voting machine with a checkmark on the screen, set against the Arizona state flag background, symbolizing democratic participation in elections.Professional portrait of a man in a blue suit with a red tie, smiling confidently against a blurred outdoor background.Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap defeated Stephen Richer in the Republican Primary in July 2024

In October of 2024, former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer entered into an agreement with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (Board) to shift certain election duties away from the Recorder’s office and to the Board.  This was done months after Justin Heap defeated Richer in the July 30th, 2024, Republican Primary for Maricopa County Recorder, and one month before Heap won the November 5th election to succeed Richer.

The agreement was unanimous and gave the Board control over early ballot processing, including the appointment of a bipartisan board responsible for overseeing the early voting process.  The agreement also centralized election-related information technology (IT) functions, as well as the $5 million budget associated with the IT service.

Following the agreement’s approval on October 10th, KJZZ Phoenix reported:

The agreement, unanimously approved by the board on Oct. 10, gives the Board of Supervisors the authority to appoint the board that processes early ballots, which includes an inspector and two judges from different political parties. According to the Election Procedures Manual, those boards examine, count and verify early ballots before they are tabulated. That includes opening envelopes, ensuring the ballot envelopes show the correct election code and identifying damaged ballots.

…

Under the previous shared services agreement adopted in 2023, the recorder managed early ballot processing.

Under the new agreement, the Recorder’s Office will retain other election-related responsibilities, including voter registration, planning and administering early voting and signature verification of early ballots.

However, the Board of Supervisors also voted to move the recorder’s information technology staff and its associated $5 million budget under its supervision, including “any IT-related service necessary for the Recorder to effectively perform its elections or business-related responsibilities as designated.

Upon assuming office, Heap cancelled the contract and called on the newly seated Board of Supervisors to renegotiate.  In a statement posted to the Maricopa County Recorder’s website, Heap suggested he would take legal action over “the Supervisors’ unwillingness to address these concerns.”

Heap did take legal action, and yesterday a Maricopa County Superior Court judge sided with the Recorder’s position.

According to the Court’s decision, the authority was delegated to a county’s recorder or an “other officer in charge of elections.”  But the order also stated that, “The recorder may subsequently withdraw his or her consent and reclaim his or her statutory authority or responsibility.”

The judge ordered that the Board of Supervisors “return to the Recorder’s direct custody and/or control the IT staff, servers, databases, software, websites, and equipment that were in the Recorder’s custody…prior to October of 2024…” and enjoined the Board of Supervisors “from further exercising any election functions delegated by the Legislature to the Recorder.”

The Board of Supervisors had argued that it had the authority to control funding and structure operations of the Recorder’s office, however, the judge rejected that claim, finding that the Board of Supervisors has a “non-discretionary duty to fund all reasonable and necessary expenses of the Recorder as set forth in Title 16 of Arizona Revised Statutes.”

Court order detailing responsibilities and authority delegation under Arizona Revised Statutes Title 16 for county recorders and boards of supervisors.

The post Big Win! Maricopa Superior Court Judge Orders Board of Supervisors to Restore Key Election Functions to Recorder’s Office appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Business

SAVE THE KINGDOM: Billionaire Expat Returns to Britain To Be Able To Donate Millions to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK

Published

5 seconds ago

on

April 20, 2026

By

Man speaking into a microphone on stage, wearing a blazer and light blue shirt, with a red curtain backdrop.Man speaking into a microphone on stage, wearing a blazer and light blue shirt, with a red curtain backdrop.British crypto billionaire Ben Delo – by Anne Schwarz Photography/Wiki Commons

Delo’s return is great news for Reform UK.

Under the incompetent, tax-hungry Labour party government, scores of wealthy people have chosen to leave Britain.

But one billionaire is making the inverse journey, in a bid to save his Kingdom.

He is returning to be able to donate millions to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, after accusing Labour of ‘trying to rig the next general election’.

The Telegraph reported:

“Ben Delo, who lives in Hong Kong, gave £4m to Reform earlier this year before the Government changed the law to put a £100,000 cap on donations from Britons living abroad.

Mr. Delo has accused Sir Keir Starmer of using legislation specifically to target big-money expat Reform donors “to stack the political deck against the most popular opposition party”.

Writing for The Telegraph, the 42-year-old says he is moving to the UK so he can donate millions more to Reform and ‘build a war chest’ for Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, to fight the next election.”

Delo is Britain’s youngest self-made billionaire, the co-founder of BitMEX, a cryptocurrency trading platform.

“Mr. Delo believes Sir Keir changed the law on donations to target Christopher Harborne, the billionaire who has donated £12m to Reform from his home in Thailand.”

Starmer is afraid expat donors can give Farage an unbeatable war chest.

Daily Mail reported:

“With Reform relying on big donations, Mr Delo said he hoped to inspire other rich expats to move back to defy Sir Keir’s ‘tinpot’ attempt to fix the next election.

The co-founder of cryptocurrency trading platform Bitmex said: ‘For Labour, sitting on its cushion of trade union funding, the idea that someone might create a level playing field by giving Reform as much money to spend as other parties is intolerable.’

[…] [Farage] said: ‘It is particularly gratifying to me personally, that someone like Ben – a builder, visionary and problem-solver, who has spent a lifetime grasping trends before other people do, sees the potential of Reform.’

Oxford graduate Mr. Delo, who was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at 11, said the ‘chronically dishonest’ culture of government makes it difficult for people with autism spectrum disorders to understand what politicians really mean.”

Read more: British Labour Government Temporarily Blocks Crypto Donations for Political Parties in Blow to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK

The post SAVE THE KINGDOM: Billionaire Expat Returns to Britain To Be Able To Donate Millions to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Continue Reading

Politics

NEW: Trump DOJ Launches Investigation into the National Football League

Published

11 seconds ago

on

April 20, 2026

By

NFL logo featuring a blue shield with bold red letters spelling "NFL" at the center, representing the National Football League.NFL logo featuring a blue shield with bold red letters spelling "NFL" at the center, representing the National Football League.Official logo of the National Football League Credit: NFL/Fair Use

The most popular sports league in America is now in the Justice Department’s crosshairs.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the DOJ has launched an investigation into the National Football League (NFL) over whether the league has engaged in anticompetitive practices that harm customers.

Per the Journal, this could seriously jeopardize the NFL’s antitrust exemption.

Professional sports leagues like the NFL are currently protected from antitrust action under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961.

The New York Post notes that this law has allowed teams to pool their media rights together into large TV packages.

The NFL has, in recent years, shifted some games to streaming services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix, forcing customers to pay $1,000 to watch every professional football game.

This has turned into a massive windfall for the NFL and streaming companies.

More from the Post:

Media rights agreements between the NFL and streamers owned by Disney, Paramount, Fox Corporation, NBCUniversal, NFL Network, Amazon, Google, and Netflix are expected to rake in more than $100 billion in sports rights fees under their current contracts, according to the FCC’s filing in February.

Fox Corporation shares common ownership with The Post’s parent company, News Corp.

Pricey media rights deals have turned the NFL into a serious money-making business, with nearly all of the league’s 32 teams run by billionaires – including Walmart heir Rob Walton, who owns the Denver Broncos, and the Hunt family, which owns the Kansas City Chiefs.

FCC chairman Brendan Carr informed the Post last month that the NFL could lose its exemptions if it puts too many live games behind paywalls.

“For so long, Americans were used to just sitting down and grabbing the remote and just very quickly and easily finding the game,” Carr told The Post.

“Over the last couple of years, that experience has become much more frustrating and people have to sign up for multiple streaming services and they have to pay out of pocket for more of these and it’s difficult to find the game,” he added.

The Post reported in February that the FCC sought comments from sports fans on how streamers have affected them.

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), the Senate’s antitrust subcommittee chairman, sent a letter to the DOJ and the FTC in March requesting a review of the NFL’s antitrust protections.

The post NEW: Trump DOJ Launches Investigation into the National Football League appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Continue Reading

Politics

Democrat GA House Candidate Floats Idea to ‘Punish’ MAGA for Voting for President Trump

Published

15 seconds ago

on

April 20, 2026

By

Georgia State Capitol building illuminated at dusk, featuring a prominent gold dome and a statue in the foreground surrounded by trees.

Georgia State Capitol building illuminated at dusk, featuring a prominent gold dome and a statue in the foreground surrounded by trees.

Democrat Suzanna Karatassos, who is running for the Georgia House of Representatives, has floated an idea to ‘punish’ MAGA.

Karatassos shared a video suggesting banning internet access for those who voted for Donald Trump.

“When this is all over, and Trump’s gone and Democrats are back in charge, and we’re rebuilding everything,” she said in the now-deleted TikTok video posted in January.

“The punishment for MAGA for voting for Trump three times needs to be that they remove their internet access for four years.”

“That they cannot post videos or comments on social media for four straight years, so that none of us are subjected to their lies and misinformation while we are rebuilding the chaos that they caused the whole world and America gets to be without their B.S. online for 4 straight years.”

“Can we all agree to this?”

Watch:

As is typical when Democrats say the quiet part out loud and don’t have the self-awareness to realize how authoritarian they sound, Karatassos claims her video was a “joke” because it is hilarious to parrot the language used by dictators to silence the opposition.

@suzanna_for_georgia♬ original sound – Suzanna for Georgia

Social media users slammed Karatassos with one noting, “The party that screams ‘No Kings’ and ‘Free Speech’ wants to SILENCE yours.”

Another points out that Karatassos is running in the same district where Laken Riley was brutally murdered by an illegal and she wants to silence those still in mourning.

“They scream about ‘democracy’ and ‘free speech’ when it suits them, but the second they think they can get away with it, they want to shut down half the country for daring to vote against their socialist agenda.”

“No trial, no crime, just pure political revenge against patriots who support Trump and want America First.”

From Karatassos’ campaign website, “I am a wife and mother in Georgia, almost all of my family lives here. I want to see Georgia thrive and for all our citizens to be able to lead a life of prosperity with dignity.”

“What is happening in our country at a federal level is unprecedented and I realized I can’t do anything about that, but I
can help protect our State from it.”

“Helping to flip the Georgia Legislature Blue is what I can offer.”

That and, of course, silencing those who disagree with her.

The post Democrat GA House Candidate Floats Idea to ‘Punish’ MAGA for Voting for President Trump appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Continue Reading

Trending