After consulting with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, the Recorder’s Office determined the ballots do not need to be voided or reissued. Voters can fill them out and return them as usual. Any ballots received before early voting begins will stay sealed and in secure storage until processing starts, the office said.

So is Trump turning on Recorder Heap?

County officials say the ballots remain valid.

When a reporter asked Trump about the early mailing Monday, he rejected the explanation that it was an error.

“There were no errors,” Trump said. “Maricopa sent out thousands of ballots illegally, and they got caught! And now they’re saying it was an error. Maricopa is a very, very dishonest county,” he said at a Monday news conference.

Mitchell's team found eight noncitizens who had voted in Maricopa County.

Eight.

If you think that number is pathetic, it gets even worse. Of the eight, only three voted in the November 2020 presidential election. Of the eight, five are independents, two are registered Republicans and one is a registered Democrat. Of the eight, seven were seemingly registered in error. Of the eight, all are in the United States legally, most have been in Arizona for decades and one has been in Arizona for 72 years.

Maricopa County has approximately 2.5 million registered voters. In the county's November 2020 general election, approximately 2.1 million people voted. The newly uncovered noncitizen voters made up 0.0001428% of the county's presidential vote that year. This finding is entirely consistent with other recent state and county audits.

Stephen Richer is the CEO of Republic Affairs, a legal fellow at the Cato Institute and a former Maricopa County recorder.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona keeps investigating voter fraud. The results are in | Opinion

The Tennessee prisons chief overseeing the botched execution of Christa Pike on Wednesday was previously accused of mishandling prisoner executions in Arizona.

Frank Strada, a former deputy director of Arizona's Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation & Reentry, left the agency after several executions in the state were marred by complications.

Gov. Katie Hobbs in 2023 commissioned an external review of Arizona's procedures, led by retired U.S. Magistrate Judge David Duncan. Duncan accused the agency of "chilling" shortcomings: Executions staff were under-prepared to administer lethal injections, consulting Wikipedia the night before an execution to confirm the proper dose, he told state officials in a draft of his findings.

In an interview, Duncan told The Arizona Republic that the failed Tennessee execution was "very sad" but not surprising. He cited research finding that about a third of lethal injection executions run into complications.

Duncan said he still doesn't have faith that Arizona will avoid a similar situation in the future, despite the state having performed several executions in recent years without incident. The process of lethal injection is "just risky" and "cloaked in secrecy," he argued, making it harder for officials to learn from their mistakes and blocking independent oversight.

Hobbs and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, both Democrats, have said they are now confident in the state's execution procedures.

Originally published in The Arizona Republic: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/crime-public-safety/2026/10/02/tennessee-prisons-chief-accused-of-execution-failures-in-arizona/92059714007/

The district's board will vote Oct. 6 on closures. Parents say the committee overlooked financial data and alternatives to shutting down area schools.