PHOENIX — Arizona's attorney general has put Maricopa County's recorder on formal notice: restore the voter registrations of 24 people her investigators confirmed are United States citizens, or face a lawsuit. The warning came in a letter dated Monday, Oct. 19, signed by Criminal Division Chief Counsel Nicholas Klingerman on behalf of Attorney General Kris Mayes and addressed to Recorder Justin Heap, according to reporting by Phoenix Focal on Oct. 21 and analysis of the letter published on Substack.
The letter, as described in that reporting, says the 24 people remain listed as “not eligible” even though investigators confirmed their citizenship. Mayes's office says there is no legal basis to downgrade or cancel a registration without affirmative evidence of non-citizenship. The Recorder's Office position, as reflected in Heap's earlier actions in this same process, has been to refer voters suspected of non-citizenship for investigation — a process whose findings, in a large share of the cases examined so far, identified citizens. This article presents both offices' positions as they have been stated in the reporting; it does not take a side in the dispute.
What makes the Oct. 19 letter urgent is not only the legal threat. It is the calendar. The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Friday, Oct. 23, is the final day to mail an early ballot. Every day a confirmed citizen remains listed as not eligible in late October is a day closer to an election in which, on Mayes's account, that voter was entitled to participate through the normal early-voting system.
Who the 24 Are, According to the Attorney General
According to Phoenix Focal's reporting on the letter, 18 of the 24 people were on the Active Early Voting List and should have been mailed ballots earlier in October. That detail matters because Arizona's early-voting system is not an afterthought for many voters in Maricopa County; being on the Active Early Voting List is the mechanism by which a ballot is supposed to arrive by mail without a separate request each cycle.
One of the 24, Mayes's office said, is a military or overseas voter whose ballot was allegedly not sent by the deadline 45 days before Election Day. Military and overseas voters operate under specific timelines designed to allow a ballot to travel out and back in time to be counted. An allegation that such a ballot was not sent on that schedule is therefore distinct from the early-voting-list issue, even though both concern whether eligible voters received the ballots they were entitled to receive.
The letter's core demand, as reported, is prompt restoration. Mayes warned Heap that she will sue unless he does so. The reporting does not describe Heap issuing a public restoration of the 24 registrations in response as of Oct. 21, and readers should treat any later response as a developing update to this story rather than assuming the outcome either way.
How This Dispute Began: The 207 Referrals
The background reaches back months. Heap earlier referred 207 voters suspected of non-citizenship to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, according to Votebeat's reporting on Sept. 28. That referral is the origin of the investigations that followed, and understanding its results, as announced so far, is essential to understanding why the attorney general is now focused on a specific group of 24.
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell announced in September that, of 60 referred voters who had voted in past elections, 8 were noncitizens and 52 were citizens, according to Votebeat. Put plainly, in that first examined group, the investigation confirmed non-citizenship in a minority of cases and confirmed citizenship in the large majority. Votebeat reported further detail on the 8: seven of them apparently registered through motor vehicle transactions, and the eighth had marked “not a citizen” on a paper application but was registered anyway.
The remaining 147 referred voters are still under investigation, according to the same reporting — roughly 20 more being examined by the county and the rest by state prosecutors. That means the full picture of the 207 referrals is not yet complete. The 24 at the center of Mayes's Oct. 19 letter are a specific subset: people investigators have, on the attorney general's account, already confirmed are citizens, but who remain listed as not eligible.
Two Different Claims About Process
Heap's public framing earlier this year was different in emphasis. In a Feb. 13, 2026, announcement, Heap used the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's SAVE database and claimed 60 noncitizens had voted, according to the reporting summarized by Votebeat and Phoenix Focal. The later County Attorney announcement in September, covering the 60 who had voted in past elections, reported a different breakdown for that group: 8 noncitizens and 52 citizens. Readers should keep the chronology straight — the February claim and the September investigative finding are not the same statement, and the September figures are the ones attributed to Mitchell's investigation.
Votebeat also reported a dispute about the correct process under state law. On that reporting, the correct process is notice to the voter and 35 days to respond before a cancellation. Mayes's office, in the Oct. 19 letter as described by Phoenix Focal, argues there is no legal basis to downgrade or cancel without affirmative evidence of non-citizenship. The Recorder's referral approach, by contrast, treated suspicion arising from database checks as a basis to refer cases for investigation by prosecutors. Those are different starting points about what a database flag alone should do to a person's registration, and that difference is the heart of the legal disagreement now headed, unless resolved, toward a courtroom.
Neither office's position is endorsed here. What can be said on the verified reporting is narrower and important: investigators have confirmed citizenship for people in this process — 52 of the first 60 examined in Mitchell's September announcement, per Votebeat, and, on Mayes's account, the 24 named in her letter. And the systems consequence of a “not eligible” listing in October is concrete, not abstract: a voter on the Active Early Voting List who is not mailed a ballot has lost the voting method they signed up for, on a deadline that does not move.
What to Watch Before Oct. 23 and Nov. 3
The next developments to watch are practical as well as legal. First, whether Heap restores the 24 registrations promptly, as the letter demands, or whether Mayes follows through on the threatened lawsuit. Second, whether any restored voters can still be mailed ballots in time — Friday, Oct. 23, is the final day to mail an early ballot, and the general election itself is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Third, what investigators report about the remaining referred voters still under examination by county and state prosecutors.
For Maricopa County voters who are concerned about their own status, the safest step is to check their registration directly through official county and state channels now, while there is still time before both the Oct. 23 mailing deadline and Election Day. This newsroom will continue following the dispute on our News front and in Southwest coverage from Previously, and will update readers if either office announces a restoration, a filing, or a new investigative result.
For now, the situation stands as the Oct. 19 letter framed it, as reported Oct. 21: the state's top law-enforcement officer says 24 confirmed citizens are still listed as not eligible to vote in an election less than two weeks away, and she has told the county recorder, in writing, to fix it or be sued.
Sources · 3 sources
- Phoenix Focal — Focal News, Oct. 21, 2026
- Votebeat — Votebeat Arizona, Oct. 2026
- Maricopa County Attorney — September announcement via Votebeat, Sept. 28, 2026
