Arizona election officials to count votes until ‘early next week’

The wait to determine winning candidates in Arizona slogged along on Thursday as election workers in Maricopa County still have not begun wading through a massive tranche of early ballots that were handed in on Election Day that have created chaos and lengthened the time until races can be called. 

Maricopa County, the most populous county in the state, is set to announce another batch of votes later tonight and will continue counting votes on Friday. However, Bill Gates, a top Maricopa County elections official, announced on Thursday that officials have not started counting the roughly 290,000 ballots that were dropped off on Election Day. He said that process is expected to begin on Friday. 

“If you drop off an early ballot, it means it has to come in on Wednesday and start the process of being signature verified,” Gates told CNN. “We have experts here who go through, compare the signature on the outside of the ballot envelope with the signature that we have in our voter registration file, so that takes a while, cause we gotta get that right.”

Mail-in ballots that were handed in are subject to that rigorous process before they are sent off to be tabulated. The 290,000 ballots that were dropped off on Election Day is a massive jump from previous cycles. In 2020, 170,000 ballots were dropped off on Election Day.

The delay has Republicans fed up and upset at the constant calls by former President Trump and his supporters to not trust the mail-in ballot system, a move that has delayed determining final results by days. 

“It’s all just a misnomer. I 100 percent blame Donald Trump for these f—-ups,” said one Arizona-based GOP operative. “If you send them in ahead of time, they have time to process them. But if you drop them off on the day of, what the f— do you expect?” 

Maricopa County on Wednesday released a batch of 62,034 votes on Wednesday night that were part of the 86,000 mail-in ballots that arrived between Friday and Sunday. There were an additional 50,000 mail-in ballots that arrived on Monday. More of these votes are expected to be announced later tonight.

“This number is immense, and it’s a conversation that probably Arizona needs to have in terms of public policy because this is a number that keeps on growing,” said Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer. “In many ways, it’s wonderful. Arizonans appreciate the ease of the voting process and that you can just take your early ballot and drop it off on Election Day, but it does inhibit us from having a higher percentage of returns available within the first 24-48 hours.”

At present, all statewide races have yet to be called as they all remain tight. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) holds a lead of more than 12,000 over Republican Kari Lake.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D) leads his reelection battle over Republican Blake Masters by nearly 95,000 votes — a 5-percentage point margin. A win by Kelly would give Democrats 49 Senate seats, leaving the battle for control of the chamber to Nevada and Georgia.

One of the questions remaining about the 290,000 ballots is their composition. According to one Arizona Democratic operative, it is unclear what the breakdown is of those that were dropped off at a polling place, placed in a drop box or arrived in the mail on Election Day. 

As of Thursday afternoon, 619,000 ballots remain uncounted, according to the Arizona secretary of state’s office. 

“We continue to be confident that we will win this race, and are grateful for Arizona’s elections officials working around the clock to count outstanding ballots across the state,” Emma Brown, Kelly’s campaign manager, said in a statement. 

A source familiar with the Masters campaign told The Hill that of those 290,000 ballots handed in on Election Day, the GOP nominee needs at least 60 percent of those to give him a shot of overcoming the retired astronaut’s lead. 

“I would be really surprised if Kari doesn’t manage to pull ahead,” a second Arizona-based GOP operative said. “If she pulls ahead, she’ll probably declare victory.”

The operative said if Lake pulls into the lead, she’s likely to maintain it given what the operative knows of the outstanding votes.

“It’s hard to see a path for Masters,” the operative continued. “[The media’s] going to be skittish to call it until everything’s in. It’s better to be patient on this because they don’t want to be wrong.”