Arizona’s official election results expected to take standard two weeks

Maricopa County election officials announced last month that it could take nearly two weeks to count every ballot cast in Tuesday’s election.

Just like always.

A clear picture of which statewide candidates win in Arizona is not clear until Maricopa County, home to over 60% of the state’s population, releases its official results. A review of the county’s election results by The Copper Courier dating back to 2000 found that it takes an average of 14 days to tally election results in their entirety. The fastest official results were released was six days in 2002, and took 20 days for every major election from 2008 to 2012.

While the November Election does have a few new time-consuming complications—two-page ballots that take longer to process, as well as a new law requiring counties to hand count a portion of ballots—elections officials remain undaunted. Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates said that election staff have planned carefully on how to run the election efficiently and is confident they will do so.

“This is an extremely important election. There’s a lot of interest in it,” said Gates. “[Elections Director] Scott Jarrett has put together a plan that assumes a very significant number of people voting both early and on Election day. So it’s not like this is a surprise that this is a big election, we all understand that.”

Unofficial versus official election results

Even though the official results have always been released a week or more after the election, how quickly races used to be called created a perception that Arizona’s results came in quickly. Until 2016, Arizona was a solidly Republican state, and the winner of most major races could be determined based on the initial results released on Election Day.

That changed in 2016, when Arizona’s election results weren’t called for two days. A small departure from the norm that went largely unnoticed as Arizona wasn’t considered a swing state at the time. Donald Trump had already won enough states to secure the presidency on the night of the election, rendering Arizona’s results in that race irrelevant.

That number jumped to six days in 2018, as voters across the state watched anxiously as state superintendent candidates Kathy Hoffman and Frank Riggs overtook the others’ lead daily. The unease was magnified as millions refreshed election results between US Senate candidates Kyrsten Sinema and Martha McSally.

But the official results took 14 days to tally, right on schedule.

What to expect

The 2024 election is on track to look more like 2018 than 2020, when both the unofficial and official results were declared sooner than expected. Any concrete results on Election Day is nearly impossible, as a new law that requires a hand count of all ballot envelopes dropped off at every polling place before they are sent to ballot processing center is expected to cause severe delays.

Counting ballots before tallying votes could delay initial results by several hours and will reduce the number of votes that can be counted that night. Jennifer Liewer, communications director for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, told Votebeat that the hand count makes it pointless to try and estimate when initial results will be available.

“As soon as I give a time, I will be held accountable for it until the end of time,” said Liewer. “The new requirement to count affidavit envelopes is too big of a factor to make a prediction.”

Elections departments have increased staff to ensure the hand counts don’t delay the official results and are confident they will deliver the results to the Arizona Secretary of State in time for statewide certification on November 25.