Maricopa County election video sparks FBI referral

Tonight, Maricopa County election officials are offering different perspectives after the recorder's office referred video of election workers at the secured tabulation center to the FBI and the county attorney. The video raised questions about why workers were there so late at night. Fox 10's Jacob Luthi has been following this story all week. He joins us live with the latest, Jacob. Yeah, Christina Mark, good evening. Maricopa County recorder Justin Heap tells me that his office received that video from a concerned citizen. It shows election staff working here at MCTEC late into the night last Wednesday. He says it raised some questions, which is why he referred it to law enforcement. But the Maricopa Board of Supervisors, they're pushing back. They're saying that this all could have been cleared up with a simple phone call. Images showing election staff on October 7th inside Maricopa County's tabulation center late at night are fueling rumors online. But to county leaders, what you're seeing is just a normal night on the job. There was no incident. It was simply people working late at night. But before the video surfaced on social media, recorder Justin Heap flagged it to law enforcement. He says his office sent the video to the FBI and the county attorney to investigate why staff were in a secured room after 10.30 at night. If you see questionable things happening in a secured facility after it's been locked down and LNA testing, it's appropriate that we hand those over. and we did what we were required to do. The county's elections department explained the employees' actions in a statement. Officials say the workers were setting up software used for the ballot duplication process on computers isolated from the internet. On Wednesday, the county even invited local political party representatives to watch a live demo of those software updates. Chairwoman Kate Brophy-McGee says the room is live streamed 24-7. She says Heap should have just asked the board what was going on. Pick up the phone and call your contacts in elections. Who you talk to multiple times a day and say, what are your people doing over there? But they never did. They just sent it straight to the FBI. Heep denies alleging wrongdoing, but says the optics aren't good. He believes the board took too long to explain the video to the public. If you wait long enough, by the time you actually start putting out facts, you know, people now don't have confidence that they're being told the whole truth. And so I would have liked to have seen them do a much better job of informing the public up front when issues arise. It's disappointing that now they're trying to play a sort of political game and point to our office for simply reporting it to law enforcement. Brophy McGee says, to her understanding, the FBI and county attorney closed the cases without finding wrongdoing. She says she's frustrated by the toll the speculation takes on election workers. I think the most disturbing and troubling, angering thing for me is that our employees were put at risk with, effectively, they were doxxed. With early voting underway, less than three weeks until Election Day, Brophy McGee says the focus remains on serving voters. We expect a robust and busy, competitive election, and we want our voters to know that our continued focus is that they can vote confidently. recorder Heap says that his office still has some questions about what those workers were doing. Again, we're just three weeks out from election day, and they say it's not going to be, the board of supervisors say it's not going to be uncommon to see workers here late at night. But again, the tabulation center can be live streamed 24-7. Reporting live in Phoenix tonight, Jacob Luthi, Fox 10 News.