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In 2026 AZ voters will have new option for ballot drop-offs

80% of registered voters in Maricopa County voted in 2024.

PHOENIX — Barring any surprises, the state will wrap up counting all ballots for the 2024 election this week. Counties will then conduct logic and accuracy tests overseen by bipartisan teams. County boards will then certify the results.

Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa, posted its unofficial results on Friday, tallying 2,078,460 ballots. Its logic and accuracy test is planned for this Tuesday.

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Voter turnout in Maricopa County was 80% and near 2020 totals. 88% of those voters cast an early ballot, either by dropping it off at voting centers or by mailing it.

As of Monday afternoon,13 of 15 counties had reported unofficial final vote tallies, with a few thousand uncured or uncounted ballots remaining in Apache and Yuma counties.

Tabulating ballots takes several days in Arizona because state law allows voters to drop-off their sealed mail-in ballots at voting centers and drop boxes.

This year more than 300,000 “late earlies” were dropped off in Maricopa and Pima County alone on election day, requiring elections workers to verify signatures and resolve discrepancies in the days after the election before sending ballots through tabulation machines.

One change to elections in 2026 may speed up the tabulation process. A law passed at the state legislature earlier this year will allow voters to open their early ballot envelope on election day at a polling location. They will show I.D. to an election worker and then feed their ballot directly into a vote-counting machine.

That option, allowing voters to scan their early ballots on site, would save counties time after election day because they would not have to process those “late earlies.”

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