PHOENIX (AP) — With the more than 600,000 votes remaining to be counted in Arizona, a key question is at stake. Do they look like the state’s late-counted 2020 votes, which were overwhelmingly Republican-winning, or do they break down like his 2018 midterm elections, which Democrats won? most of?
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The answer will determine who wins the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and a very tough race for governors, secretaries of state and attorneys general. 2024 presidential election rules.
Two days after the midterm elections, it was too early to count, with about a quarter of the vote remaining.
Former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election have recalibrated voting patterns across the country, especially in Arizona, which has starred in conspiracy theories that suggest the outcome was tainted. This makes it even more complicated for news outlets to declare winners.
After opening up a big lead on election night, Democrats saw their margins dwindle as more Republican votes were counted after only early-returned mail-in ballots were reported. Democratic leads improved in the Senate, Governor, Secretary of State and Attorney General elections Thursday afternoon when Pima County, which includes left-leaning Tucson, reported new results. New results were expected later Thursday from the Phoenix area and Maricopa County, which includes more than 60% of Arizona voters.
As was the case with the 2018 and 2020 elections, it could take days before it becomes clear who won some of the closer contests. emphasized.
read more: Democrats maintain a slight lead in the major Arizona race, but it’s still an early call
“This is how it’s done in Arizona, and it’s been for decades,” said Bill Gates, Republican chairman of the county oversight board. It is said to continue.
“We’re doing everything we can to maintain accuracy,” Gates said.
In Arizona, where the overwhelming majority of people vote by mail ballot and many are waiting at the last minute to return their ballots, prolonged polling has been a staple of elections for years. . But as Arizona transforms from a Republican stronghold to a competitive battlefield, the delay is increasingly a source of national anxiety for both parties.
Mail-in ballots take time to process. That’s because officials need to make sure that the signature on the ballot envelope matches the signature on file, not that the voter voted in person. Maricopa County officials said they received a record number of vote-by-mail ballots returned on Election Day.
The Republican Party is still in the race, and it remains to be seen if the Democratic Party’s better-than-expected approval ratings in much of the United States will extend to Arizona.
Republicans wanted more results, believing the remaining votes were strongly in their favor.
The Republican Party has nominated a string of candidates who have won Trump’s endorsement after falsely claiming his loss to President Joe Biden was tainted. Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake claimed Thursday morning that Maricopa County officials are “delaying” the announcement of the results to make it look like Democrats are doing better than they actually are.
“We’re going to win this, there’s nothing they can do, but they’re pouring cold water on this movement,” Lake told conservative radio host Charlie Kirk. “This movement is on fire and the fire cannot be put out. We the people are taking back our government.”
Gates countered Lake’s accusations of deliberately delaying the tally, saying the votes were counted in the order they were received.
“We’re not taking it slowly,” he said. “If their team had been paying attention before the election, they would have heard us talk over and over again about no results on election night, taking days. ”
Lake promised to call lawmakers to a special session as soon as he was sworn in to make major changes to Arizona’s election law. She wants to slash early voting and mail-in ballots, which her eight elect to at least 10 of her Arizona voters, and hand count all ballots.
The Democrats had a five-point lead in the Senate and Secretary of State races, but with so many votes backlogged, it was too early to hold an election.
Officials in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county, said they were able to count the 17,000 votes cast in person on Election Day but were affected by a printing accident. Printer issues in 70 of the 223 vote centers prevented field ballot counters from reading their ballots. The issue slowed voting in some places and angered Republicans who were hoping for strong voter turnout on Election Day.
The cause remained a mystery. Two of his senior officials on the county board of oversight, who are Republicans, said in a statement Wednesday night that they used the same printers, settings and paper thicknesses for the August primary and pre-election tests. but there were no widespread problems.
Associated Press writers Bob Christie and Terry Tan contributed to this report.
