PHOENIX — Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates says the county's ballots should nearly all be tabulated by this Friday.
The supervisor gave closing remarks after polls closed on Election Day. He started by thanking the roughly 3,000 temp workers and all the permanent workers who helped with the election.
Gates laid out further details on what to expect as results began to come in.
"We feel very confident that every voter that showed up with I.D. had the opportunity to vote and had their vote counted," he said.
According to Gates, roughly 245,000 people voted-in person, and more are expected to be reported as those people still in line to vote cast their ballots. At this time, Gates was unable to give figures on early ballot drop-offs.
"We will have our first drop of ballots, the first vote tallies will be reported at 8 p.m.," Gates explained.
As for the early ballots? You can expect those to be counted by Friday.
Hopefully, all in-person votes will be reported by 2 or 3 a.m, Gates said. Ballots submitted to Box #3 won't be counted until the morning.
"People should not be expecting final results," he said. "There are many many ballots to be counted even after today."
Gates explained that Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer's team will go through to verify signatures and ensure that the ballots are legitimate.
Gates says he expects 95-99% of ballots to be counted by this Friday.
Earlier in the day, an issue with printers at Vote Centers led to issues with the tabulation machines. No ballots were misread, but the problem did lead to some delays in casting ballots.
Gates said that issues with the printers were a surprise, because those ballot printers hadn't caused issues during the primary elections. Gates added that these same printers were used for early ballots as well as in-person ballots.
"This was a new issue we saw today during our in-person voting," he said.
Gates said that he wouldn't be surprised to see lawsuits, and the county is prepared to address those. However, Gates stressed that the goal was to follow the laws and demonstrate the security of the county's election.
"We've gotta get to a point where we have a finish line."
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