Why is it taking so long for Arizona to count ballots?

PHOENIX – It has been greater than 24 hours since polls closed, and a whole bunch of hundreds of ballots nonetheless should be counted in Arizona.

As counting efforts proceed, some are asking how different states like Florida get election outcomes so quick whereas Arizona nonetheless has no reply on many of the prime races.

One issue within the pace of counting is the sheer dimension of Maricopa County, which is the nation’s second largest voting jurisdiction.

For this election, 1.3 million ballots had been solid within the county, and 290,000 early ballots had been dropped off on Election Day.

The early ballots that got here in on Election Day itself are recognized in some locations as “late earlies,” the counting of which has been recognized to carry up tabulation.

2022 Arizona Election: Reside updates, outcomes as they arrive in

One other issue is the poll verification course of.

“When persons are instructed to drop off their early poll on Election Day, these cannot be counted that evening. You may’t simply run them via a machine. They need to be signature checked, scanned first, signature checked, then processed by a bipartisan board earlier than they are often counted,” mentioned former Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell.

Purcell mentioned there was an enormous enhance within the variety of early ballots solid. At the moment, staff are counting ballots that got here in over the weekend earlier than Election Day, and on the Monday earlier than Election Day.

“You may’t have it instantaneous until we had a race the place we had 60% and 20%,” mentioned Helen Purcell.

In response to Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, 100,000 extra “late earlies” had been dropped off this Election Day than in 2020. It is the very best variety of early ballots turned in on Election Day within the county’s historical past.

Richer himself has famous that this would possibly spark up a coverage debate about the advantages of dropping off early ballots proper as much as Election Evening versus the worth of getting quick solutions about election outcomes.

One different issue is the race themselves: Arizona has many tight races, and candidates are jockeying for the lead as new tranches of voting knowledge are available from the varied counties. 

As of Nov. 10, most of the state’s most closely-watched races have vote variations of 5% or much less.

“We knew from the get-go that this election was going to be shut, and a whole lot of ours have been,” mentioned Purcell.

There are additionally about 17,000 excellent ballots — about 7% of these solid in individual on Election Day — that had been put aside as a consequence of a Tuesday printing drawback at a few quarter of the county’s vote tabulation facilities. 

A decide denied a request from Republicans to maintain the polls open, saying he didn’t see proof that folks weren’t allowed to vote, and officers mentioned these votes can be tallied all through the week.

Election officers mentioned in addition they acquired about 8,000 provisional ballots on Election Day, which included these solid by individuals who didn’t have ID, or these whose data confirmed that they had already voted by mail.

Exterior of Maricopa County, about 200,000 ballots remained to be counted, the majority of them in Pima County, which incorporates Tucson.

In rural Cochise County, supervisors voted Wednesday to enchantment a court docket ruling that had blocked a full hand-count.

A day earlier than this 12 months’s midterm elections, a decide blocked Cochise County officers’ plan to rely by hand, a measure requested by Republican officers who expressed unfounded issues that vote-counting machines are untrustworthy.

The Related Press contributed to this report.