MARICOPA COUNTY, Ariz. — Maricopa County has begun processing the so-called "Box 3" ballots that were mistakenly printed too light for the tabulators to read.
County officials said those 17,000 ballots were brought into the tabulation room Thursday afternoon to begin the counting process.
On Election Day, printing equipment at 70 polling places were mistakenly printing ballots with marks that were not dark enough for the tabulating machines to read.
Voters had the choice of placing those ballots in the box beneath the machine, which came to be known as "Box 3" or "Door 3."
At the time, election officials said those ballots should be able to be read by the tabulating equipment back at county election headquarters.
The county originally said they hoped to have 95-99% of the ballots counted by Friday but said in a press conference Thursday the "goalposts have changed." With the record number of ballots left to process, county election officials expect to be counting until early next week.
"But I'm here to tell you the goalposts have changed. All right. And the reason that the goalposts have changed is because of wonderful news, the great participation we had on Election Day. We've always told folks that we would work through this three-day weekend. Veterans Day is tomorrow that's a holiday here, but we will be working Friday, we will be working Saturday, and we will be working Sunday to move through these ballots as far as the printer," County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates said.
In the press conference, Gates said election workers had been putting in 14-18 hour days to get the votes counted. He called Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake's comments indicating "workers are dragging their feet and slowing down the process" offensive.
Gates said, "if Lake's team had been paying attention, then they would know that we've said for days this wouldn't be done on Election Day."
Gates also mentioned Lake's team had not taken the county up on its offer to tour the elections department and its work.
Gates and Vice Chairman Clint Hickman sent a statement Thursday saying the county is still investigating the cause of the printing errors on Tuesday.
The statement said county officials had tested the printers before the election and run "hundreds" of ballots before Election Day without a problem.
The statement said the equipment had the exact same settings during the test run and on Election Day, but the ballots still printed too light to be scanned.
Gates and Hickman wrote the county would investigate the cause of the malfunction after the current counting is finished.
Maricopa County has approximately 407,000 ballots left to be counted. That includes 275,000 early ballots that were dropped off at polling places on election day. That beats the 2020 election day dropoff return totals by 100,000 votes.
By law, each of those early ballots, even though they were dropped off in person, must go through signature verification. Then, those ballots must be opened and processed by bi-partisan campaign workers. County Recorder Stephen Richer said Thursday that they have approximately 40,000 early ballots left to be signature verified
The next ballot drop is expected in the 8 p.m. hour Thursday, election officials said Thursday.
You can watch Thursday's press conference in the video player below.
Decision 2022
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