Arizona's Maricopa County To Take Until "Early Next Week" To Process 400,000 Ballots
While Brazil can count tens of millions of ballots in a matter of hours after any given election, Maricopa County, Arizona is trying its darnedest to make America look like a banana republic - given that most Americans remember entire elections being called in one night up until 2020, hanging chads notwithstanding.
On Thursday, the Chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors told CNN that it's going to take until "early next week" to count 400,000 ballots.
The Chairman of Maricopa County's Board of Supervisors just said that there are around 400,000 ballots left to be counted and that they won't be done until "early next week." pic.twitter.com/9zQuZKyLtG
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 10, 2022
Simple math suggests it would take 100 people, hand-counting at a snail's pace of 10 ballots per minute, less than a day to count all of the ballots - but we digress. Instead, Maricopa County appears to have 6 people sitting around a table giggling like school girls.
"The hand count audit has begun," wrote Maricopa County's election department on Twitter on Wednesday.
The hand count audit has begun! Today the @MaricopaCounty Republican, Democratic, and Libertarian party chairs drew the races and ballots that hand count audit boards will review Saturday. This is an important step in ensuring the accuracy of the 2022 General Election results. pic.twitter.com/0CmzftSSY1
— Maricopa County Elections Department (@MaricopaVote) November 10, 2022
What they lack in speed, they make up for in interesting hair!
Oh...
Who's responsible for the elections in Arizona? "Miss 'I don't do debates and I hide in the basement', Katie Hobbs, Secretary of State" and she refuses to recuse herself 🤦♀️ pic.twitter.com/KFrdEgnXwm
— Joni Job (@jj_talking) November 10, 2022
As the Epoch Times notes, They added that it is “an important step in ensuring the accuracy of the 2022 General Election results.”
The reason behind the hand-count audit is to “compare the results of the original count to the hand count to assure that the tabulation equipment is working properly” and counting votes in an accurate manner, says the Arizona secretary of state’s website.
Voters in Arizona are still awaiting the final results of the gubernatorial and Senate races. The secretary of state’s office estimates that there are about 400,000 uncounted ballots that are still outstanding.
On Tuesday, top Maricopa County officials stated that vote tabulating equipment had problems processing ballots. Later in the day, authorities blamed the problem on a “printer issue” after telling voters to place their completed ballots in a drop box.
County Supervisor Bill Gates said that about 7 percent of ballots that were cast on Election Day were put in drop boxes after the tabulators suffered problems.
“There is no perfect election. Yesterday was not a perfect election,” Gates said. “We will learn from it and do better.”
Arizona and Maricopa officials have received a bevy of criticism from Republicans over the exceptionally slow counting process. Authorities said they might be finished by Friday.
Candidates Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Katie Hobbs, the Democrat secretary of state, maintain narrow leads over their Republican counterparts. GOP candidates Kari Lake and Blake Masters are challenging in the governor’s race and Senate race, respectively.
“We’re going to go back to small precincts where it’s easier to detect problems and easier to fix them and it’ll be easier to hand count votes as well,” Lake told Fox News on Wednesday night. “These are some of the things I’d like to see happen. I’ll work with the Legislature.”