Several counties in Arizona are taking much longer than expected to count ballots and report election results.
The delay means numerous legislative, statewide and local elections have yet to be called, including races for the U.S. Senate and races that will help determine the balance of power in the House of Representatives. Voter advocacy groups have warned that if vote counting drags on, voters won’t have enough time to resolve problems with their ballots.
An update on uncounted votes statewide was not available Friday morning, but as of Thursday night, four of the 15 counties (Cochise, Pima, Yavapai and Yuma) still had more than 25% of their votes counted. It remained.
In Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, about 20% were still uncounted as of Thursday night, some of which had not even gone through the first step of verifying the voter’s signature on the outside of the envelope.27 It also includes 4,000 mail-in ballots.
In this election, many counties had long, two-page ballots, which caused delays in at least some cases. For example, in Maricopa County In Pima County, it takes time to remove mail-in ballots from their envelopes, unfold them, and inspect them.
In other counties, the issue is different. Cochise County is experiencing Mechanical issues with the tabulator are slowing it downAs of Thursday night, 57% of ballots had still been counted. JP Martin, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s Office, said counties were only able to count a few ballots at a time on the final day, but tabulation machines were still counting accurately. Martin said a technician from the tabulation company arrived Thursday night to assist, and the company may need to send a new machine.
Both with Yavapai Pinal Countyit took much longer to tally polling place results on Election Day than expected due to unclear voter marks that had to be sorted out before polling place results were reported. . Mr. Pinal took 24 hours to count the ballots at his polling place, while Mr. Yavapai took until Friday morning.
“We know people want results, but we’re doing the best we can here,” Yavapai County Elections Director Rollin Custis said Friday morning.
As of Thursday night, 40% of the votes remained to be counted in Yuma County, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. The reason is unknown.
A coalition of dozens of voting rights groups is concerned that delays will leave voters with insufficient time to respond to counties flagging mismatched or missing signatures on mail-in ballots. . Under state law, the deadline to resolve these issues is Sunday, but as of Thursday night, counties had not yet reviewed hundreds of thousands of voter signatures on ballots across the state. .
group he wrote in a news release Friday afternoon. He said he supports extending the deadline. They said all voters must correct their signatures within five days of being notified of the problem.
“We support ensuring that community organizations and candidates of all political parties fighting for voter rights have sufficient time to answer questions about ballot signatures to ensure their votes are counted.” each organization said in a statement.
