PHOENIX — Maricopa County is anticipating it will take 10 to 13 days to complete the tabulation of an anticipated roughly 2.1 million votes in the 2024 General Election.
12News has received questions about why Maricopa County estimates it will take 10 to 13 days to count every vote in Maricopa County. Maricopa County has never had all votes counted on election night.
Arizona law requires any election to have early voting. Those early ballots require specific steps to be followed to verify the ballot,
Including:
Scanning the green affidavit envelope to make sure that person hasn’t voted yet in the current election
Verifying the voter’s signature
Bipartisan teams then take the ballot out of the envelope by hand and check it for damage.
The ballot can then be tabulated.
So far in the 2024 General Election, Maricopa County Election officials tell 12News 2,090,347 early ballots have been requested as of the close of business Thursday.
In recent years, according to data from the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, more of those early ballots have been returned by voters on Election Day. In 2022, those ballots accounted for almost 20 percent of all ballots cast in the November 2022 General Election.
A new state law also now requires those green affidavit envelopes dropped off on Election Day with ballots inside to be counted up at the individual vote centers after polls close. Then they can be taken to the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) to begin the processing before tabulation.
According to Maricopa County Elections data, 13 days is the average amount of time it’s taken them to tabulate ballots in every election year since 2006.
There’s a difference between counting every ballot and calling a winner. In states where one candidate is so far ahead that the other can’t possibly catch up, regardless of the remaining votes, the winner can be called before every vote is counted.
In Maricopa County, the races are really close.
“We’re roughly one-third Republican, one-third Democratic, one-third Independent,” Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates, said.
Dating back to 2002, the Arizona Governor’s race between Democrat Janet Napolitano and Republican Matt Salmon was too close to call on election night.
In 2018 the race for the U.S. Senate between Martha McSally and Kyrsten Sinema took almost a week to call.
“Although we will be tabulating ballots more quickly than ever, we want people to know, and you're going to hear this a lot in the next few weeks, that it will take time to get results,” Jennifer Liewer, Maricopa County Deputy Elections Director, said. “This is greatly impacted by people who drop off their early ballots on Election Day because our races will be close.”
Results will be released on election night, with the first batch being released at 8 p.m. that evening. Those results typically include early ballots returned by the Friday before Election Day.
You can find information on how to track your ballot and voter registration here.
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