More than 1.13 million votes were counted within 24 hours of Election Day, not just 62,000
More than 1.13 million votes were counted within 24 hours of Election Day, not just 62,000
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Nationally and in Arizona, Republicans have criticized the pace that votes are being counted in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous.
“We waited 24 hours and got a measly 62,000 votes,” Republican secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem tweeted Nov. 9. He called the county’s election system “a national disgrace.”
Although roughly 62,000 ballots were added to the total amount of votes about 7 p.m. that evening, more than 1.13 million ballots already had been counted in the 24 hours since the polls closed. Complete election results in Arizona typically take 10 to 12 days. NBC News and other media outlets called the secretary of state race for Democratic candidate Adrian Fontes, who led Finchem by more than 5 percentage points.
Fontes earned 1,245,008 votes to Finchem’s 1,122,907, according to the secretary of state’s unofficial results as of Nov. 14.
By Saturday, Nov. 5, the county had received more than 840,000 early ballots, which accounted for the bulk of the initial vote tally the county posted on election night. Within the next 24 hours, the county had processed over 273,000 ballots. Each ballot goes through a closely monitored signature verification process.
After Election Day, the ballots counted are a mixture of early ballots, early ballots received on Election Day, ballots cast on Election Day and provisional ballots. At first, Maricopa County updated vote numbers several times on and shortly after Election Day, but began updating once a day on Nov. 10.
We emailed Finchem for comment but did not hear back.
Finchem said, “We waited 24 hours and got a measly 62,000 votes.”
Although there was an update that included 62,000 ballots, that was one of three updates after the initial release of results. In the 24 hours after the initial release, the county had included more than 273,000 additional ballots in its tally.
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Chad Bradley expects to graduate in spring 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication. Bradley is a digital reporter for Cronkite News.