By admin 
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Maricopa County Supervisor Debbie Lesko has seen security video at the center of an investigation into the recorder’s office and described it in detail.
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The video shows a staffer from the recorder’s office taking a ballot scanner off-site in his personal truck.
“This is just kind of insane,” Lesko said.
What the video shows
Lesko described what county security cameras captured this spring as results of a local Tempe election were being counted.
“What I saw on video was Justin Heap’s chief information officer taking an election machine out of an election building, putting it in what seems to be a private truck, hauling it off over to the recorder’s office,” Lesko said.
Lesko said a pretabulation scanner was then taken up an elevator before it was returned about an hour later.
“And what’s even worse is they took ballots like envelopes out of a locked area. We don’t know what they did with them. We don’t know why he took this machine. We don’t know what happened to it,” Lesko said.
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County response
Lesko and the board sought advice from the county attorney. They said the machine could no longer be used because what the recorder’s office did with it is unknown.
The county bought a new scanner last month for $70,000 in taxpayer money.
The incident led to an internal and a criminal investigation.
“Who does this kind of stuff? Who, after being said, you know, this equipment belongs to the election department, who just comes out and takes something, doesn’t get authority to do it. There’s no authorization,” Lesko said.
Heap requested that the courts end the criminal investigation and block any prosecution of the workers involved in taking the scanner and ballots. The request was filed Monday.
Heap did not respond to requests for comment.
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