{"id":218,"date":"2026-06-11T23:05:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T23:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phoenixrelocationnews.com\/?p=218"},"modified":"2026-06-11T23:05:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T23:05:30","slug":"video-recorders-office-employees-snatch-ballot-scanner-amid-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phoenixrelocationnews.com\/?p=218","title":{"rendered":"Video: Recorder\u2019s Office employees snatch ballot scanner amid election"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Newly released video shows Maricopa County Recorder employees entering the county elections department and absconding with a pre-tabulation ballot scanner and provisional ballot envelopes during Tempe\u2019s jurisdictional elections earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Read more Arizona veterans nonprofit sues after Shaquille O\u2019Neal no-shows event<\/a><\/p>\n

A special prosecutor is currently investigating whether Bryan Colby, the chief information officer for Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap, and another unidentified Recorder\u2019s office worker broke the law by removing the items from the county\u2019s vote tabulation center. Due to chain-of-custody issues, the board replaced the scanner at a cost of $70,000.<\/p>\n

The incident is the most recent episode in a long-running feud between Heap and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors over who runs what for elections in the county. Neither Heap\u2019s office nor spokespersons for the board immediately responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Heap, an election-skeptic Republican, has claimed in court that the scanner belongs to his office, which handles voter registration and mail ballots. That\u2019s been disputed by the board, which is controlled by more centrist Republicans, and the elections department, which tabulates votes and handles Election Day voting.<\/p>\n

The ballot scanner incident occurred as votes were being tallied in the March 10 election for three seats on the Tempe City Council. According to emails Phoenix New Times received in response to a public records request, the scanner was used during that election. A purchase order shows that the Elections Department bought the scanner from Runbeck Election Services in January 2023 for $105,600.<\/p>\n

According to silent security camera footage from inside the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, Colby and a second recorder\u2019s office employee \u2014 whose face has been blurred in the video released to news outlets \u2014 walked into the facility\u2019s pre-tabulation cubicle area around 1:36 p.m. on March 12. The two men had entered the facility just two minutes prior, according to the county\u2019s Human Resources Administrative Investigation Overview, for which the recorder\u2019s office declined to participate.<\/p>\n

Colby can be seen pushing a two-tiered gray cart through a cubicle area. He and the other recorder employee gave a brief wave to the election employees in that area. Colby then left the frame for a few seconds, leaving the cart behind him.<\/p>\n

Two election employees can be seen standing in their cubicles, looking over at the duo. One then walked over and appeared to try to talk to them. According to the HR investigation, that employee \u2014 who is also unnamed and whose face is also blurred \u2014 asked Colby and his companion what they were doing. In response, Colby told her that Recorder\u2019s Office election director \u201cRey (Valenzuela) knows about it.\u201d The election employee said she wasn\u2019t informed that the scanner would be removed, at which point Colby repeated his statement.<\/p>\n

In the HR investigation, election employees describe the interaction as \u201cunexpected and abrupt\u201d and \u201ccharacterized their demeanor as visibly angry.\u201d Later, an election employee emailed upper management about Colby\u2019s taking of the scanner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The two Recorder\u2019s Office employees can then be seen hoisting the ballot scanner onto the cart Colby had brought into the room, then wheeling it out of the cubicle area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A minute later, a different camera captured Colby, without the scanner, walking toward the early voting processing cage in the facility. An unidentified election employee opened the cage for him, and the two men walked over to a shelf with blue boxes. Colby grabbed \u201cwhat appears to be provisional ballot affidavit envelopes\u201d before the door to the cage even closed, according to the HR investigation. He showed the employee the documents and looked at them closely outside the cage for a few seconds before leaving the room.<\/p>\n

The investigation couldn\u2019t locate video evidence of Colby returning the envelopes to the cage, but it did confirm with the elections department that they were ultimately accounted for. The investigation alleged that those envelopes \u201cmay have been photocopied,\u201d which \u201craises questions and risks for the County regarding election processes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Minutes after Colby left the cage, an outside camera recorded him and the other recorder\u2019s office employee leaving the building via a ramp on the northeast side of the building on Third Avenue. The two men pushed the cart from behind, with the scanner still on top. A different camera captured them pushing the scanner and cart toward a gray pick-up truck with a black cover. According to the HR investigation, the truck had \u201cno County insignia\u201d and was \u201cpresumably a personal vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colby opened the truck bed and then appeared to place the ballot envelopes on the front seat of the vehicle. The two men then slid the scanner into the truck bed and closed the tailgate. A minute later, after the second employee returned the cart to MCTEC, the pair drove away.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where the security footage ends. However, according to the HR investigation, 10 minutes after leaving MCTEC, the two employees arrived on the second floor of the Jefferson Garage, which is attached to the recorder\u2019s office. They then pushed the pre-tabulation scanner into the county administrative building.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As recorder employees entered the building, Maricopa County Election Director Scott Jarrett emailed Recorder\u2019s Office Chief of Staff Sam Stone to notify him that equipment belonging to Jarrett\u2019s department had been removed by the recorder\u2019s staff.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you please direct Bryan Colby to return the Elections Department scanner immediately,\u201d Jarrett wrote. \u201cAlso, Bryan Colby needs to be directed not to access or remove Elections Department equipment in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seven minutes after taking the scanner into the recorder\u2019s office, Colby\u2019s companion brought it back out to the garage. Two minutes later, Stone responded to Jarrett\u2019s email. \u201cApologies,\u201d he wrote, \u201cmy understanding is the machine was marked for EV (Early Voting).\u201d Thirteen minutes after that, the employee pushed a cart with the scanner from the vehicle toward MCTEC\u2019s entrance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The entire incident, from Colby\u2019s entrance into the MCTEC cubicle area to the return of the scanner, lasted less than an hour.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The HR investigation recommended that the recorder\u2019s office investigate Colby\u2019s conduct and \u201ctake any appropriate action to address concerns, including a potential referral to law enforcement.\u201d This recommendation stems in part from the fact that Colby was informed by Elections IT staffer Brian Stormer via a Teams message, a little more than a week before he went into MCTEC, that the scanners had been purchased by the elections department.<\/p>\n

However, after the recorder\u2019s office was sent the HR investigation, Stone claimed in an email exchange on March 30 that the recorder \u201cdid purchase two of these scanners\u201d and that \u201cColby \u201cbelieves, based on the paperwork attached, that the scanner in question\u201d was \u201cone of the two\u201d belonging to the recorder. That turned out to be incorrect.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis entire incident could and should have been handled with a phone call,\u201d Stone added. \u201cAnd we do not believe any continued investigation is appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Facing steep water cuts, Scottsdale defunds water recycling program<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap says the scanner, taken during ballot counting for Tempe’s election, is his. County supervisors disagree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nVideo: Recorder\u2019s Office employees snatch ballot scanner amid election - Phoenix Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/phoenixrelocationnews.com\/?p=218\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Video: Recorder\u2019s Office employees snatch ballot scanner amid election - Phoenix Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap says the scanner, taken during ballot counting for Tempe's election, is his. 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