Table of Contents Letter from the Recorder ..................................................................................................................... 3 Recording Services .............................................................................................................................. 4 About the Department .................................................................................................................. 4 Recording Services Highlights ..................................................................................................... 5 Voter Registration ................................................................................................................................ 6 About the Department .................................................................................................................. 6 Voter Registration Highlights ....................................................................................................... 7 Early Voting ........................................................................................................................................... 8 About the Department .................................................................................................................. 8 Early Voting Highlights ................................................................................................................. 9 External Affairs Department ............................................................................................................. 10 About the Department ............................................................................................................... 10 External Affairs Highlights......................................................................................................... 11 Appendix A – Recording Services Statistics .................................................................................. A1 Appendix B – Voter Registration Figures ....................................................................................... B1 2 Letter from the Recorder Dear Maricopa County: “Man plans and God laughs.” This old Yiddish expression has very accurately characterized my past year as Recorder. The challenges, opportunities, and urgencies have been radically different than what I envisioned when I took office on January 4, 2021. But, to use another phrase, “you play the hand you’re dealt,” and we’ve played the hand well. Through hard work, creativity, and talented public employees, we have made great improvements in the fulfillment of our four main statutory duties: 1. The recording of public documents 2. The registration of voters and maintenance of the voter database 3. The administration of early voting 4. The fulfillment of requests for information and documents The following pages highlight some of our recent accomplishments in these four statutory areas. Thank you, as always, for the opportunity to work for Maricopa County in this meaningful capacity. Stephen Richer Maricopa County Recorder 3 Recording Services Department About the Department Since 1871, the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office has been responsible for recording and maintaining public records for Maricopa County. These permanent public records include a variety of documents, but the majority relate to real estate: deeds, titles, surveys, and plat maps. Watch the history of how Maricopa County has preserved the public record since our founding on February 14, 1871. Customers can record documents digitally through an online account, by mail, in-person at our downtown Phoenix location, and coming soon: updated customer kiosks at select locations throughout the county. Currently, 91% of all our documents are recorded digitally. The Office also indexes documents for search on the Recorder’s Office website. We currently house over 50 million searchable documents (186 million images) dating back to 1871. The team indexes 2,000 – 4,000 documents per day, with an approximate 48-hour turnaround time for indexing newly recorded documents. Overall, in 2022, the Office recorded over 920,000 documents — a 33.6% decrease from 2021. For Recording Services Department statistics, see Appendix A. 4 Recording Services Department Highlights From 2022  We welcomed former Yavapai County Recorder Leslie Hoffman to her next role as Director of Recording Services at the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office. Director Hoffman served as Yavapai County Recorder for over a decade and has more than 20 years of experience in the title industry as a former branch manager and escrow officer. The Office is thrilled to have her leadership and experience, especially as the Recording Services Department pushes forward on critical projects.  We recorded over 920,000 documents with very few interruptions in service, and consistently high assessments of customer satisfaction. Leslie Hoffman Director of Recording  We designed a title alert system that will soon be available to all county residents free of charge. This program is an opt-in service that will notify subscribers whenever a document is recorded in their name or business name.  We restored and relocated over 8,000 historical books of recorded documents to a nearby, climate-controlled Maricopa County facility. Having these books in-house will save taxpayer dollars and will allow easier access. These books date back to 1871.  We reduced – to less than 48 hours – the time it takes from when a document is recorded to when it is indexed and searchable online.  We indexed approximately 60,000 historical records that had not previously been indexed. 5 Voter Registration Department About the Department The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office is responsible for voter registration and the maintenance of the county’s voter rolls. This work includes modifications to existing records, cancelations, and, of course, new voter registration applications. As of January 3, 2023, Maricopa County had 2,457,349 active registered voters. The Voter Registration Department works year-round to ensure the accuracy and compliance of the voter rolls. The Department utilizes various reports from the Secretary of State’s Office, the Arizona Department of Health Services’ Bureau of Vital Records, the state and federal court system, and tools such as National Change of Address reports and monthly Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) Deceased Reports. In addition to these regular reports, the 2022 election cycle – which included two jurisdictional elections, the August primary election, the November general election, state initiative and referendum petitions, and redistricting – provided multiple opportunities for further list maintenance and spurred many new registrants, modifications, and cancelations. For Voter Registration Department statistics, see Appendix B. 6 Voter Registration Department Highlights From 2022  We cleaned the voter rolls! Despite being the fastest growing county in the United States, our total number of active registered voters has decreased by approximately 160,000 since the 2020 election. We made cleaning the voter rolls a priority of the Department — we hired a new Department director, we increased staff, and we improved our technology. We also benefitted from the multiple countywide mailings that triggered returned mail, which allows us to begin the process to move the voter to inactive status. We, of course, did all of this in compliance with both state and federal law, which strictly guard the circumstances in which a voter can be moved to inactive status.  We registered 189,803 new voters. Before registering a new voter, we must: confirm the person’s existence through the Social Security Administration and Motor Vehicle Division, assess the person’s citizenship status, confirm that the person’s address is a real residential address, and successfully mail the new voter a voter registration card.  We processed 333,863 updates to voter records. This includes a change of address, a change of partisan affiliation, or any other change to the voter’s registration record.  We completed a countywide decennial redistricting and mailed new voter registration cards to all registered county voters.  We mapped thousands of new home developments.  We assessed the validity of signatories for three statewide initiatives and three jurisdictional initiatives.  We reviewed 54 candidate petition challenges. This is the process whereby individuals challenge if candidates have submitted enough valid petitions to appear on the ballot. The Department assesses each challenge and issues a report. 7 Early Voting Department About the Department Arizona state law divides election administration between each county’s Board of Supervisors and Recorder. Maricopa County has followed this statutory framework since 2019. In simple terms, the Board of Supervisors is responsible for Election Day operations, as well as the tabulation of all votes. The Recorder is responsible for voter registration and early voting, including all mail voting. Together, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Recorder’s Office administer jurisdictional elections within the county (e.g. city and town races, city bond measures, school district override measures), the once-every-four years Presidential Preference Elections, and the biannual August primary election and the November general election. 8 Early Voting Registration Department Highlights From 2022  We successfully administered the early voting components of a March jurisdictional election (21,338 ballots) and a May jurisdictional election (1,732 ballots).  We successfully administered the early voting components of the August primary election (866,924 ballots), and the November general election (1,562,758 ballots).  We enhanced the signature verification process by adding additional audits, additional trainings, and more data points for signature comparison.  We added features to our text message or email-based ballot tracking system (sign up at BeBallotReady.Vote or by texting “JOIN” to 628-683).  We added more documentation to early ballot chain of custody.  We installed new features on our voter dashboard (BeBallotReady.Vote), including the ability for voters to check their voting history.  We increased the number of locations where voters could return their early ballots.  We hired and trained hundreds of Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and Independents as temporary workers in positions ranging from ballot processors to signature verifiers to truck drivers. In total with the Board of Supervisors, for the November general election, the County hired 920 Republicans, 920 Democrats, 6 Libertarians, and 411 Independents as temporary election workers.  We sent bipartisan special election boards to 430 locations where voters needed special assistance – nursing homes, hospitals, etc.  We printed and mailed over 625 large print ballots.  We issued almost 50 braille ballots.  We launched “text to cure” to allow voters to more easily address non-matching signatures. 9 External Affairs Department About the Department Communicating about recording, voter registration, and election administration has never been more important. And the demand has never been greater. The External responsible Affairs for Department communicating is with constituents, answering public records requests, providing information to state legislators, responding to media inquiries, creating educational information, and anything else needed to answer questions from Maricopa County residents and build confidence in our critical government functions. 10 External Affairs Department Highlights From 2022  We designed and launched a new website that hosts all voter registration and election administration information (Elections.Maricopa.Gov), replacing the previous website that had been built 20 years ago. The new website offers a wide range of information – from live voter registration statistics to FAQs about election administration. It also presents the information in an easy-tonavigate view.  We hosted 58 tours of our election facility. This helps build confidence in our election process by showing attendees election tabulation equipment, SiteBook check-in stations, our warehouse, our secure ballot vault, our ballot processing center, our command center, and more.  We improved our “STAR Call Center” by significantly reducing the average call wait time, while also increasing call quality.  We responded to over 52,000 constituent emails during the 2022 election cycle, with an average response time of only a few hours.  We attended over 100 community events to offer educational information on recording, voter registration, and election administration.  We conducted 23 virtual election education workshops presented by our election subject matter experts.  We published a monthly Just the Facts newsletter to more than 40,000 subscribers.  We fulfilled 1,193 public records requests.  We deployed an election administration advertising campaign across TV, radio, print, billboards, digital, and social media that yielded 177 million impressions over the election cycle.  We wrote articles and reports for many popular publications including The Arizona Republic, CNN.com, National Review, Newsweek, Politico, and others.  We added 87 new deputy registrars to our new-existing pool of 893, and we mobilized their wonderful volunteer services for many naturalization ceremonies, voter list maintenance projects, and the voter education projects. 11  We developed a report regarding proposed legislative reforms to election administration, and we worked with many state legislators on ideas for sensible, effective changes to Arizona election law.  We participated in over 300 interviews to print, radio, and TV news media outlets.  We partnered with Arizona State University to teach individual classes on recording, voter registration, and election administration. October 1 – December 31, 2022 Public Records Requests Received by Category Extensive Research 1 174 Voter Data 60 Voter Information 71 Election Services 26 Recording Investigations 3 Total: 334 October 1 – December 31, 2022 Records Requests Received by Month October 2022 132 November 2022 129 December 2022 73 Total: 334 Typically a request that will exceed a 30-day time for production. It includes access and duplication involving multiple databases, communication requests (email, mail, text) from multiple parties and over a significant period, or archival documents. Many requests involve a combination of these factors. 1 12 Appendix A – Recording Services Statistics Appendix A – Recording Services Statistics – Infographic Figure A1 Figure A1 graphs the average number of documents recorded daily by month and year from 2017 through 2022. The Recording Services department accepts documents for the creation of a permanent public record. These documents are often real property related (ex. deeds, titles, liens) and include any encumbrances placed on real property. Approximately 91% of all documents are now recorded digitally through the Recorder’s Office online portal, and the Office continues to process documents mailed in and serve customers in-person at the public counter in downtown Phoenix. 1 Appendix B – Voter Registration Figures See Voter Registration totals updated in real time on our website. Infographic B (Appendix B Page 2) contains figures* on: • • • Totals of active registered voters by party in Maricopa County as of January 3, 2023 Total of newly registered voters by party in Maricopa County between October 1, 2022 – December 31, 2022 Political Party Voter Registration changes in Maricopa County between October 1, 2022 – December 31, 2022 *Data retrieved January 2, 2023. Voter registration figures may fluctuate in real time due to ongoing voter list maintenance. B1 B2