Arizona Election Results Stalled: Lengthy Ballots and Court Order Hinder Counting Process

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

Arizona continues to await election results that were initially expected by Wednesday morning. A significant number of ballots cast at polling places on Election Day remain uncounted, particularly early ballots from Maricopa County, contributing to the delay.

Maricopa County faced challenges with its two-page ballot format, which delayed the processing of votes. Election workers struggled to remove the ballots from envelopes and prepare them for counting, leading to a backlog. Meanwhile, in other areas of the state, results trickled in as Pinal County also fell behind in processing, and a court order extended polling hours in Apache County due to technical difficulties encountered by voters.

By Wednesday morning, many counties had yet to report all precinct results. In Maricopa County, officials estimated approximately 700,000 early ballots remained to be processed. Typically, the first results released at 8 p.m. on Election Day include all early ballots received by the preceding Friday. This time, however, the results reflected only those received through October 29.

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer explained that it now takes nearly twice the usual time to handle each ballot due to the complexity of the new format, marking the first time in nearly two decades that ballots extended beyond a single page. During a recent press briefing, he conveyed uncertainty about whether the county was behind schedule but indicated that they were working diligently compared to previous years.

To mitigate the backlog, the county introduced a third overnight shift for ballot processing last week, but this move proved too late to fully address the pending ballots by Thursday. As per a county release, the first round of results shared at 8 p.m. on Tuesday amounted to approximately 1.1 million early ballots received by the county by October 29. Officials had received about 1.5 million early ballots as of Monday morning.

Further results from early ballots, including those submitted after Monday or still being processed, are expected to be released in the coming days. Total projected voter turnout was estimated at 2.1 million, with the county planning to report the number of early ballots dropped off at polling sites on Wednesday.

Richer expressed confidence that the county would complete processing by the weekend, aligning with the deadline for voters to rectify issues with their ballots on Sunday. Meanwhile, Maricopa County successfully released all Election Day results—encompassing around 269,000 voters—by early Wednesday morning.

The introduction of a new law requiring poll workers to count early ballots dropped at polling places has also contributed to delays, extending the final reporting time by an hour or two relative to previous elections. Other counties reported similar delays; for instance, Pinal County had processed results from only half of its precincts by late Wednesday morning.

In Apache County, lingering delays were attributed to a court mandate that extended polling hours. This order was enacted in response to technical problems that caused extensive wait times for voters.