WSJ:

In videos released this summer by Maricopa County [AZ], two election staff—one of them a top aide to the Maricopa County recorder—removed a ballot envelope scanner and provisional ballot envelopes from a secure location while votes for a special election were still being tallied. They returned the equipment within an hour.

The incident is the latest flashpoint in an increasingly bitter fight between the mostly Republican elected officials who run elections in Arizona’s biggest county. The clash has rekindled a debate many Arizona voters had hoped to move on from….

On one side is a majority Republican board who have doubled down on their opposition to claims of fraud. On the other is a Trump ally who has been boosted by election deniers and has raised concerns about election integrity but stopped short of saying Trump won the 2020 election….

County Recorder Justin Heap said there was nothing nefarious about the removal, and his staff was taking back equipment his office had paid for, alongside empty, voided ballot envelopes….

Members of the board, meanwhile, say the scanner belonged to them and question Heap’s story. They say regardless of what was done with the scanner while it was gone, the fact that it left the premises meant it was compromised, and they spent $70,000 to replace it. The county attorney has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the incident and decide whether to bring criminal charges.