Heat Maps

This page explains how the governance gaps were plotted on a Heat Map to identify the weakest areas of Maricopa County governance.

You are here: Governance Gaps; Governance Gaps; -- Heat Maps

After learning about Governance Gaps additional supporting details are available from the following web pages:

• Governance Gaps; Governance Gaps; --Interesting Takeaways

Heat Map Findings

• Maricopa County Board of Supervisors did not acknowledge the Arizona Senates oversight role and the situation digressed into a litigated settlement agreement.
• Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Maricopa County Recorder's Office did not respond to the public (Jamie's inquiries).
• The Arizona Secretary of State was legally responsible for providing oversight for Arizona Elections, but was ineffective in the oversight role.
• The Arizona Superior Court for Maricopa County "...found that found that much of what was requested was not records that existed, but answers to question about accountability and controls [in other words, governance], and much of the relief Plaintiff sought was beyond was beyond the Court's authority in a public records case.

All fourteen examples had Attribute, 2.01 as a weakness because the Attribute is written as an overview and scored as a governance gap because of the absence or ineffectiveness of oversight. The other Principle 2 Attributes (i.e., 2.02, 2.03. 2.04, 2.05, 2.06, 2.07, 2.08, 2.09, 2.10, 2.11, and 2.12) were intended to assess the oversight entity, but none existed and the legally designated oversight the Arizona Secretary of State (Katie Hobbs), which was less than adequate. Public documents from Katie Hobbs that assessed the General Election in Maricopa County for 2020 was devoted to attacking the Senate for their oversight activities or simply parroted the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors positions. The Arizona Secretary of State was ineffective in that role because election anomalies recurred in the 2022 mid-term election. Hence, Principle #2 scored low because there was no evidence of Oversight Activities to assess with respect to how Oversight should function, which is a serious governance gap.

Disclaimer

The data collected and plotted on these heat maps was constrained data availability.

• ACV's observations were not obtained from an internal structured organizational assessment., which would have theoretically had better internal documents and employee attitudes obtained from interviews.
• ACV's observations were obtained from the best available data, which included Jamie's personal experience and publicly available information from the internet.

Jamie's personal experience was perhaps the most accurate for scoring of an individual Green Book Attribute because the insight came from a clear understanding of the context and there were no biases introduced by third parties. However, Jamie's personal agenda limited the number of Attributes observed; some governance attributes were simply not observed.

An Arizona Attorney General's Office 2020 General Election Investigation was the primary source of publicly available information used for this governance assessment. This report from the AG's Office was prepared to address the Arizona Senate's allegations of malicious or criminal behavior after Maricopa County refused to willingly cooperate with the Senate's oversight of election anomalies. In this case, there were biases introduced by the investigators; these were not first-hand observations. That said, the documented observations of professional investigators were considered credible. The AG's Office found no criminal wrongdoing. However, their explanation for election anomalies repeatedly used sloppiness or poor governance as the explanation for the election anomaly. In other words, Maricopa County's inadequate internal controls or noncompliance with appropriate internal controls caused the election anomalies.

Heat Map? What's that?

A heat map is a graphical representation of data. The Heat Map uses colors to visualize the magnitude specific data point within a collection of a much larger data set. This allows the reader to quickly identify high and low values, clusters, or patterns without scanning raw numbers in a table or spreadsheet.

Red colors represent a larger number of observations that found governance issues with the specific attribute. Attributes and Principles that are red or have reddish tones should be interpreted as organizational behaviors and practices that are in need of attention in terms of fulfilling the US GAO's Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government.

Conversely Green colors represent a smaller number of observations that found governance issues with the specific attributes. Fewer observations may denote organizational alignment to the US GAO's Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government. However, Green doesn't necessarily mean good governance; green colors or greenish tones may also mean there was insufficient observations in this area to make a judgement.

In summary, the heat maps shown in this section shows Green Book Attributes and Principles that suggest poor governance practices in red color or reddish tones. From a performance improvement perspective, reddish colors are worthy of management attention.

Attribute Portion of Heat Map

Attribute data is presented on the right side of the heat map as x.01 through x.23, where "x" denotes the Green Book Principle, and number to the right of the decimal point denotes the Attribute within the Principle (see below). This Attribute data is straightforward. For each relevant observation of a deviation from the stated attribute, a value of one was added to the cumulative score.. This is a one-for-one relationship. Larger number of observations are shown in red colors or reddish tones.

Colors were based on a comparison to all other Attributes within all Principles. Attributes were compared to Attributes.

Principle Portion of Heat Map

Some math was required to determine which Principles had the greater number of poor governance observations because of a wide range in the number attributes per Principle. For example, Principle #10 had 23 attributes while Principle #12 only had 5 Attributes. A straightforward numerical comparison would be invalid.

For Green Book Principles on the left side of the heat map, a weighting factor was used to normalize the observations for a fairer comparison. A percentage of actual observations to potential observations was determined for each of the 17 Green Book Principles.

All Green Book Principles weighting factors (%) were compared to other Principles, not Attributes. As with Attributes, Green colors do not necessarily denote good governance for the Principles; green colors may have occurred because the Attributes within a Principle were simply not observed.

Heat Map from All Observations

Heat Map from Observations Taken from Jamie's Story

There were 11 events evaluated for potential governance gaps, which are deviations from the Green Book Standard. The Heat Map of Jamie's Stories was comprised of the following events:

1. 2020: General Election Anomalies - Public View
2. 2021: My Journey Begins
3. November 2022: Ethical Issues with Katie Hobbs Overseeing Her Own Election
4. May 15, 2025: Let’s Play Hot Potato
5. June 25, 2025: Runbeck Contract Delivered
6. November 20, 2025: Debbie Lesko Presentation
7. March 12, 2026: Maricopa County Defense Briefing
8. June 1, 2026: Judge's Decision
9. June 8, 2026: Arizona State Ombudsman Replies
10. June 9, 2026: Maricopa County Ombudsman Replies
11. August 3, 2026: Submitted Complaint

Interpretation of Jamie's Story Heat Map

• Principle #1 - Demonstrate Commitment to Integrity and Ethical Values (32%) stands out as dominant area of poor governance.

The next two items are as follows:

• Principle #2 - Exercise Oversight Responsibility (16%)
• Principle #17 - Evaluate Issues and Remediate Deficiencies

Heat Map from Observations Taken from Election Anomalies

There were 14 events evaluated for potential governance gaps, which are deviations from the Green Book Standard. The Heat Map of Election Anomalies was comprised of the following events:

1. AZ AG's Investigation: Allegation #1 - Signature Verification
2. AZ AG's Investigation: Allegation #2- Drop Box Collection
3. AZ AG's Investigation: Allegation #3- Election Management System (EMS): Sub-allegation #1 - Data Purged
4. AZ AG's Investigation: Allegation #3 - EMS: Sub-allegation #2 - Election Files Deleted
5. AZ AG's Investigation: Allegation #3 - EMS: Sub-allegation #3 - Corrupt Ballot Images
6. AZ AG's Investigation: Allegation #3 - EMS: Sub-allegation #4 - Missing Ballot Images
7. AZ AG's Investigation: Allegation #3 - EMS: Sub-allegation #5 - Failure to follow basic Cyber Security practices
8. AZ AG's Investigation: Allegation #3 - EMS: Sub-allegation #6 - Subpoenaed Equipment Not Provided
9. AZ AG's Investigation: Allegation #3 - EMS: Sub-allegation #7 - Anonymous Logins
10. AZ AG's Investigation: Allegation #3 - EMS: Sub-allegation #8 - Dual Boot System Discovered
11. AZ AG's Investigation: Allegation #3 - EMS: Sub-allegation #9 - Operating System Logs Not Preserved
12. AZ AG's Investigation: Allegation #3 - EMS: Sub-allegation #10 - Internet Connection to the EMS
13. AZ AG's Investigation: Allegation #4 - Maricopa County Board of Supervisors did not Provide for Audit
14. Maricopa County Assistant Director email Suspends Sharpie Markers and then directs there use on Election Day

Election Anomalies Heat Map Data

Interpretation of Election Anomaly Heat Map

The weakest areas of governance were with the following principles:

• Principle #1 - Demonstrate Commitment to Integrity and Ethical Values (54%)
• Principle #17 - Evaluate Issues and Remediate Deficiencies (54%)
• Principle #12 - Implement Control Activities (43%)
• Principle #8 - Assess Fraud, Improper Payments and Information (39%)

Note for Principle #2 - Exercise Oversight Responsibility scored low (8%). However, this principle is perhaps the biggest issue. All 14 Election Anomalies were identified to have a gap with oversight Attribute 2.01.

Green Book Documentation Requirements

The US GAO's Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government Appendix I specifies Documentation Requirements for effective implementation of internal controls. A separate Heat Map was prepared to illustrate Maricopa County's governance with respect to Documentation Requirements.