The unfortunate answer may be another two weeks.
Image courtesy of the Washington Post, annotations by Mish.
Arizona Central addresses the issue Why does it take Arizona so long to count votes? This problem is fixable
While the rest of the country is moving on, we in Arizona are stuck in an election night time warp. Waiting to see whether we sent Ruben Gallego or Kari Lake to Washington.
Maricopa County elections officials have said it’ll take 10 to 13 days to finish counting votes.
It’s embarrassing. It’s frustrating. It’s ridiculous. And worst of all, it gets the conspiracy crowd all riled up, certain that there’s a plot afoot to steal Arizona’s vote.
Don’t blame (Republican run) Maricopa County. From what I’ve seen, the board of supervisors ran a remarkably smooth election.
it’s just not realistic that nearly a quarter of a million people can drop off early ballots on Election Day, then expect to know who won a close race on election night.
Unexpected Problems Counting Ballots
VoteBeat explains Arizona election results delayed as counties experience unexpected problems counting ballots
Update, Nov. 9: American Civil Liberties Union and the Campaign Legal Center filed an emergency petition to the Arizona Supreme Court on Saturday morning, asking the court to extend the deadline for voters to respond to problems with their mail ballot signatures. The original deadline is 5 p.m. Sunday. Because of the delays in counting ballots and notifying voters of problems, the organizations want voters to be given an additional two to four days to respond to notices, depending on how officials notify voters there is a problem.
An updated statewide number of uncounted ballots wasn’t available Friday morning, but as of Thursday night, four of 15 counties — Cochise, Pima, Yavapai, and Yuma — still had more than 25% of their ballots left to count.
Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, still had about 20% uncounted as of Thursday night, including 274,000 mail ballots that had not yet gone through even the first step of verifying the voter signature on the outside of the envelope.
Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, still had about 20% uncounted as of Thursday night, including 274,000 mail ballots that had not yet gone through even the first step of verifying the voter signature on the outside of the envelope.
The long, two-page ballot that many counties had in this election was to blame for delays in at least some instances. For example, in Maricopa County and Pima County, it’s taking longer to remove mail ballots from their envelopes and unfold and inspect them.
In other counties, the problems vary. Cochise County is experiencing a mechanical problem with its tabulators that’s causing them to operate slowly, and still had 57% of its ballots to count as of Thursday night. The county was able to count only a few ballots at a time over the last day, though the tabulator is still counting correctly, according to JP Martin, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office. A technician from the tabulator company arrived Thursday night to help, and the company may need to send a new machine, Martin said.
In both Yavapai and Pinal counties, tabulating polling place results from Election Day took much longer than expected because of unclear voter marks that had to be sorted out before results from the polling place could be reported. Pinal took 24 hours to count just the polling place ballots, and Yavapai took until Friday morning.
Four Key Things
- Arizona allows “early” votes to be dropped off on election day.
- Then the first step is a manual signature verification.
- If the signature verification fails, voters get a chance to verify it.
- And now it’s possible, if not likely, the Arizona Supreme Court will extend the cure figure.
Every one of those will fuel conspiracy theories by the losing party.
My Math
I crunched the numbers. There are four key counties in play.
Tiny Cochise county may deliver 9,000 more votes for Kari Lake because so many votes are outstanding.
But even if we assume reasonably good totals for Lake in Maricopa County (Phoenix), say even instead -3.6 percent, it looks like Pima County (Tucson) will carry the day for Gallego if the turnout is close to what we have seen.
Lake can win if she dramatically outperforms in the rest of the Maricopa County vote.
But from where I sit, it looks like Kari Lake loses by about 1.0 to 1.6 percent.
Regardless, Arizona seriously needs to rethink how it runs elections.
Trump Will Have a Second Chance to put a Gold Advocate on the Fed, Go For It!
In case you missed it, please see Trump Will Have a Second Chance to put a Gold Advocate on the Fed, Go For It!
Judy Shelton in back in play for a Fed nominee. Please do it President Trump.
Also see Why Trump Won the Election in One Clear Picture
There is massive Democrat soul searching today. Hardly anyone will get it right. This is despite huge evidence all year long.
You can ask California the same question… still waiting on dozens of districts there…
Yes, the state takes ballots up to a week late to give USPS ample time to sort/discard.
Nine House Reps are still “undecided” in CA.
Far worse than AZ; not as noticeable because usually blue.
Since CA is a massive DEI state, let’s apply Hanlon’s razor …. for now….
Still doesn’t explain what makes Arizona unique.
All these things are known in advance: obviously there no real plan.
As for the fraud, previous reports about anomalies and forensic inspections do not warrant any optimism, and I never get why there’s so many people who keep thinking everything is on the up and up in US elections, no matter how many problems, statistical anomalies, reports, exceptions, etc., show up, as well as decades of the same pattern.
Why can almost all other civilized countries and others as well get this right, but only the US cannot fix this even after decades? Must be on purpose.
We are too arrogant as a country to learn from other countries and adopt their systems and processes
I’m perfectly happy to do away with signatures on ballots and use fingerprints–much harder to forge.
Here’s more ‘LMAO’ Election Analysis
From Zero Hedge
It’s not just Arizona. There are races in California where not enough votes have been counted in order to call certain races. Some of those are congressional. Even one of the contested seats on the L.A. city council, wasn’t decided going into the weekend. Carl DeMaio, of Reform California was able to obtain a seat in the state assembly, in an effort to end the Democrats legislative super majority. Some other seats were still undecided, last he spoke.
The Game is Up: Putin has the upper hand, Trump and his advisers are on the back foothttps://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/11/10/the-game-is-up-putin-has-the-upper-hand-trump-and-his-advisers-are-on-the-back-foot/
Putin & Trump best friends.
TDS
Putin has slowly been taking more and more territory in Ukraine, under Biden. Putin has had the upper hand for some time, now. Biden has been on the back foot. Russia always had the advantage in terms of military capability. NATO in Ukraine was a red line for Russia, just as Russian missiles in Cuba were a red line for the U.S. It was not a smart idea to provoke Russia into invading Ukraine.
Whoever gave you a down vote for stating the truth is a f*(king moron.
The problem now is how to defuse and clean up Biden’s mess, given that Putin has the ascendancy.
Did you also read Gavin Longmuir’s comment. IMHO, it’s more insightful than Gilbert Doctorow, who claims to be an independent Russia specialist.
There are obvious reasons why Putin has not called Trump.
In a state that went 53 to 46% in Trump’s favor, any result that doesn’t have Kari winning is suspect
I doubt it. She’s just popular enough to win the Republican nomination, and just disliked enough to not be able to ride Trump’s coattails. She was a poor choice by the Arizona Republicans and she’s now saddled with the reputation of being not just a perennial loser, but a sore loser at that.
You doubt that it is suspect? That just sounds like you’re trying to cover for dems. I think it’s reasonably suspicious and deserves a thorough investigation.
All the swing states, including AZ, voted for Trump. Trump is the reps new landlord. Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley are out. If the Vance/ Trump’s administration cut gov debt it will strengthen the dollar. Higher 10Y, higher CL.After WWII the dollar was stronger than gold. Europe exchanged gold for dollars. After LBJ the value of gold was higher than DXY. Charles De Gaulle wanted his gold. Higher CL is bad for China. If China deflates Shi will delete the fake peg to gold. China will sell gold.
Shi killed millions with covid. Trump might infect Shi with high CL. Collateral damage all over the world, including the US.
I am really going to miss Kamala Harris. Her word salads are truly epic. You can read over them several times and marvel at their incoherence. I have never seen any other public figure that can match her.
Let’s hope that stays true, and any equal is never seen? She was a disgustingly incompetent Woman, and woman from every inch of America should be applauding the fact, that she doesn’t represent them, their intelligence or the reputation for what they Can and are capable of bringing to the table!
A win by Kamala, would have seen the Woman’s movement towards intelligence, and an equal player in Politics, set back 50 years or more. Hillary nearly deep sized the idea of a Woman ever becoming President, as wretched as she was and still is! Kamala would have globed onto that ten fold, and sunk the idea for another Century…
Woman Unite and help push that backwards thinking Neanderthal do uselessness, and thank your lucky stars you may still have a shot just yet!!!
I have two neighbors, both Gay and exhibiting VERY “brutally honest and obnoxious” comments on all others and NEVER inward looking (My wife detests them both) were heard two days ago that Kamala was the “most qualified candidate for President.” The illusion that she is competent just amazes us both. One of them says that she is moving to Europe.
We can be hopeful that she does.
My Wife and I try hard not to discuss the roots of Politics, so I come here and elsewhere for that.
At a higher, obvious, simpler level, so we can easily get along discussing such topics, we come to the same conclusions about Kamala’s (and Biden as well) intellect or lack thereof.
We come to agreement because it’s so simple, BUT you must address it WITHOUT emotion, we have found to be the trick to success!
Once emotions come into play, the voices rise, back neck hairs go up and tingle, and thoughts get muddled, and before you know it, the matter at hand to discuss IS LOST!
My take…
I am allergic to Kamala Harris. Glad she is gone. Definitely will not listen to her incoherent speeches and laughing. PA gov Josh Shapiro, who escaped Kamala Harris, will swim with the sharks.
It’s interesting that the “deplorable” state governments are the only ones that seem to have a basic handle on how to count. Fake House of Representatative votes that statistically won’t raise red flags are no doubt being manufactured and snuck in by the hour.
Some of the delay for Arizona may be down to Republican pushback on Democrat attempts to game the system.
In a state that went 53 to 46% in Trump’s favor, any result that doesn’t have Kari winning is suspect
BTW Has anyone seen those Youtube videos out there of the irrational meltdowns over candidate choice? Most likely, the majority of those videos are from Californians. And you can bet your sweet ass that in the state of California, the more whack-a-doodle people are, the more likely it is that they are highly political, and are likely in those back rooms, counting votes. “Count on it” has a whole new level of meaning here in California. There are not enough Republicans in government in this state to have an adequate level of checks and balances in place here. Democrats are more than just a supermajority in California government, at all levels of government.
We should do what other countries do. No vote by mail, no cheat by mail. Simply declare a federal holiday to be “voting day”. Everyone has an assigned polling location they must physically report to and present their voter ID. If you cannot be bothered to do so that day, too bad you don’t vote. If you need an ID to buy alcohol and drive, it is reasonable to expect an ID to vote.
Frankly, there should be a basic cognitive test to vote or requirement to have some skin in the game in terms of being a tax payer at least once in the last 5 years. Otherwise, why wouldn’t someone vote for more taxes and wealth redistribution when they aren’t contributing any capital themselves to be redistributed. This is one of the reasons the founding fathers had a property requirement, but taxes are probably a more direct linkage today.
You also need ID to buy a gun, a constitutionally protected right.
You need ID to get many, many jobs.
But, surprise, surprise, you never hear opponents to Voter ID complain about discrimination for those activities.
Great points!
In California, you need ID to deposit $50 *cash* into a bank account at a teller window without being given a receipt of deposit or balace on the account for the *cash* transaction. It’s not clear how you can be stealing from the bank, from the customer, or money laundering under these conditions.
California probably demand ID to ensure taxes are paid properly too!
“no taxation without representation” should go both ways too…
“no representation without taxation” – show your tax ID and that should do it.
The USA is the only modern developed nation without a voter ID requirement.
Virtually every state the Dems won had no photo ID requirement
Surely that’s a perfect example of how random the world is?
Stop it! You’re making sense!! Good way to get banned from social media you know…
Ask Stalin.
They count until they get the result they want.
Yes I notice democrats not outraged by how slow this is.
A lot of people aren’t prone to constant outrage. You should try not being outraged. It’s nice.
Lol, says the TDS mental patient who got everything wrong
Republicans wanted signature verification
Florida requires signature verification for mail-in ballots and they have no problem counting them quickly. There are 31 states in all that require signature verification for those ballots so the problem is not the verification but because Arizona did not set the system up properly. They will have to rethink it because the citizens of Arizona, Democrat and Republican, will demand it. Florida had to do the same thing after the 2000 Presidential election made it a laughingstock in front of the whole country.
Perhaps they should have smaller counties if they don’t want shorter ballots?
It’s all those people standing for election with Polish names.
Staffing issue, or process design failure?
Republicans wanted signature verification
Ghetto Dimocrats wait for Republican counties to report so they know how many votes to Xerox. This time Republican counties are holding back until the Dims report.
The Chicago way
Republicans wanted signature verification
Almost like when the driverx incenses started to have photos in the early ‘80s for those using fake IDs to buy a six pack – outrageous!
I just heard Vivek talk to Tucker Carlson about their voting reform plans:
— National holiday on election day
— One day only voting
— Voter ID required
— Paper ballots
Sounds good to me.
As for AZ, they screwed up in 2020, then in 2022, and now in 2024. As you say, if nothing else it fuels the conspiracy theories.
Why do *any* of the people involved still have a job?
Add on: Results within 24 hours after the last “Legal Voting Place” is closed.
Count Me IN!
Did Anyone actually lose a Job? Anybody?
Hmm.. seems to me, If ALL of the people involved still have a job, then ALL of the people were involved.
I get the impression your declaration of fact is falling on deaf ears with the mob?
Reminds me of being a kid and the mail in offers on the cereal box said to expect 6 – 8 weeks for delivery
My dog can count quicker and more accurately than AZ.
The answer is obvious. As long as it takes to secure a solid Dem win.
There’s no excuse, no other state is anywhere near as bad as Arizona. The state legislature does not want to solve it or they would have already done so.
Disgraceful.
This is the exact sorta nonsense that just has to be eradicated. If this cannot be resolved how can one reasonable expect ANY actual problem be resolved. 5 year olds couldn’t conjure up a worse process but I’m betting they could count faster. Thankfully the Senate doesn’t hang in the balance but Arizonans and Americans deserve better. What are the odds we have this conversation again November of 2026 and sadly November of 2028?
It is ludicrous. Congress needs to update the law and specify a deadline for when states need to have voting results.
And in person voting should be the expected voting method.
We may have to resort to Purple Fingers.