‘This Is How Things Work in Arizona’: Maricopa County Official Explains Why It’s Taking So Long to Count the Votes

EXCERPT:

GATES: “So, why is it taking the amount of time it’s taking? A lot of people are talking about this. First of all, it’s very standard. This is how things work in Arizona and have for decades. This is due, in part, because the mail-in voting and Recorder Richer is going to talk about that more. But I told this group that we anticipated 90% to 95% — sorry, 95% to 99% of the ballots to be counted by Friday. That’s tomorrow. But I’m here to tell you the goalposts have changed, all right? The reasons the goalposts have changed is because, wonderful news, the great participation we had on Election Day. In particular, we had 290,000 mail-in ballots dropped off at our vote centers on Election Day. That broke the previous record by 70%. So we saw great involvement, and as Recorder Richer can talk about more, there’s a process under Arizona law that we have to go through, signature verification, and that takes a while. When those ballots came in on Tuesday, that means that his team couldn’t even start until Wednesday. That’s part of why we’re seeing those goalposts change a little bit. But we have always told folks that we would be working through this three-day weekend.”