Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county, is set to announce another batch of ballots later tonight and will resume counting Friday. But Bill Gates, Maricopa County’s top elections official, announced Thursday that officials have not begun counting the roughly 290,000 ballots cast on Election Day. He said the process is expected to begin on Friday. “If you leave an early vote, it means it has to come Wednesday and start the signature verification process,” Gates told CNN. “We have experts here that go through, they compare the signature on the outside of the ballot envelope to the signature that we have on our voter registration record, so that takes a while because we have to get it right.” Mail-in ballots are subject to this rigorous process before being sent for recording. The 290,000 ballots cast on Election Day is a huge jump from previous cycles. In 2020, 170,000 ballots were cast on election day. The delay has left Republicans fed up and upset by repeated calls by former President Trump and his supporters not to trust the mail-in ballot system, a move that has delayed the determination of final results by days. “It’s all a misnomer. I blame Donald Trump 100 percent for these riots,” said an Arizona-based GOP insider. “If you send them earlier, they have time to process them. But if you leave them on his day, what are you waiting for?’ Maricopa County on Wednesday released a batch of 62,034 ballots Wednesday night that were part of 86,000 mail-in ballots that arrived between Friday and Sunday. There were an additional 50,000 postal ballots that arrived on Monday. More of those votes are expected to be announced later tonight. “This number is huge and it’s a conversation that Arizona probably needs to have in terms of public policy because this is a number that continues to grow,” said Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer. “In many ways, it’s great. Arizonans appreciate the ease of the voting process and that you can just pick up your early ballot and drop it off on Election Day, but it prevents us from having a higher rate of returns available within the first 24-48 hours.” As of now, all the matches across the state are yet to be played as they all remain tight. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (R) holds a more than 12,000-person lead over Republican Kari Lake. Sen. Mark Kelly (D) leads his re-election battle over Republican Blake Masters by nearly 95,000 votes — a margin of 5 percentage points. A Kelly victory would give Democrats 49 seats in the Senate, leaving the battle for control of the chamber to Nevada and Georgia. One of the remaining questions about the 290,000 ballots is their composition. According to an agent for the Arizona Democratic Party, it is unclear what the breakdown is of those dropped off at a polling place, placed in a box or delivered by mail on Election Day. As of Thursday afternoon, 619,000 ballots remained uncounted, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s office. “We remain confident we will win this race and are grateful for the Arizona election officials who are working around the clock to count the excellent ballots across the state,” said Emma Brown, Kelly’s campaign manager. A source familiar with the Masters campaign told The Hill that of those 290,000 ballots cast on Election Day, the GOP nominee needs at least 60 percent of them to give him a chance to overcome the retired astronaut’s lead. Pelosi extends remote voting in House through Dec. 25 Here are the Nevada counties to watch as votes are counted in Senate, gubernatorial races “I would be really surprised if Kari doesn’t get ahead,” said a second Arizona-based GOP insider. “If he goes ahead, he will probably declare victory.” The agent said that if Lake gets ahead, she’s likely to keep it, given what the agent knows about exceptional votes. “It’s hard to see a path to the Masters,” the agent continued. “[The media’s] It’ll be crazy to say until it’s all in. You better be patient about it because they don’t want to make a mistake.”
