Maricopa County primes the pump for distrust by revealing how long it might take to count votes

Arizona election officials in Maricopa County — the fourth most populous county in the U.S. — are apparently planning to take their sweet time tabulating the votes in the 2024 election.

Whereas elsewhere in the country and the Western world, election results are frequently tallied within hours of polls closing, Maricopa County deputy elections director Jennifer Liewer indicated at a press conference Tuesday that it could take nearly two weeks to count the votes.

"We do expect that it will take between 10 and 13 days to complete tabulation of all of the ballots that come in, but we ask for the community's patience," said Liewer. "We want to make sure that this is a secure process, but we also want to make sure that it is an accurate process."

Over 2.1 million votes are expected in the county this year, where over 400,000 ballots have already been cast.

'We are being scammed.'

The high volume of votes is anticipated to retard the tabulation process along with the fact that the ballot this year is atypically long — two pages with an average of 79 contests per ballot.

Liewer further indicated that the county anticipates that the two-paged ballots will generate some confusion when processing advance votes:

We will have some voters who might return page one and page two. We might have voters who only return page one or page two. In both of those scenarios, it is easy for us to continue with the work. But we will have some voters who, maybe their partner or their husband or wife returns two page ones or two page twos. That will create issues because we don't know which ballot is tied to that voter in that early voting process.

Election officials suggested that these factors won't just mean a longer wait for results, but longer lines on Election Day.

"If I have one message for voters here today, it is this: that the longer ballots and higher interest in this 2024 general election will create longer lines on Election Day, and that's OK," said assistant Maricopa County manager Zach Schira. "But if you want to save time and you want to avoid those lines vote early, either in person or by mail, that'll save you time, and it'll help us report more results on election night."

Liewer indicated the county is planning on onboarding more staff for ballot processing, adding additional night shifts, and taking other steps to ensure the tabulation process goes "as smoothly as possible."

The possibility that the Arizona county could drag out the election for over a week did not sit well with some critics.

BlazeTV host Steve Deace told "Blaze News Tonight," "I don't know what the margins of cheating are anymore. To be fair to Maricopa County, Trump is polling way ahead of where he was the last two times he ran, and so they clearly don't know how many votes they're going to need to — ah, I'm sorry — count. It's going to take a little bit longer to come up with that number."

New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino noted, "There is absolutely no legitimate reason for this. None whatsoever. We are being scammed."

Geiger Capital signaled the delay was far from normal, highlighting how in the recent Taiwanese election, where voters were required to show photo ID and use paper ballots, "It's all done in 6 hours."

"Taiwan has a population of ~24 million," continued Geiger Capital. "Meaning ... every US state could easily do this and count every single vote in a couple hours. We would know every state's exact results by midnight of Election Day. No security worries, no controversies, no waiting for days or even weeks."

"Our system is broken," tweeted Elon Musk.

Wall Street Silver responded, "Our system is working great[,] exactly as they want it to work in certain blue counties."

Maricopa County supervisor Bill Gates went on the defensive, writing, "Our system isn't broken. @maricopacounty is counting ballots faster than ever and on pace with every other state. Arizona law requires processes that dictate the timing by which we count the ballots. More importantly: I'll take accuracy and security over speed every time."

The Arizona Republic's Laurie Roberts branded concerns over the delay as the stuff of conspiracy theorists, suggesting it was no big deal as Maricopa County has historically been a laggard — with two-week delays in 2012 and 2018 and a 17-day delay in 2008.

Roberts added that Arizona law permits early ballots to be dropped off at the polls until the polls close on Election Day but prohibits their counting on election night.

Unlike Maricopa County, Pennsylvania's Allegheny County is attempting to reverse the trend of delayed results. KDKA-TV reported that whereas it took Allegheny County several days to count ballots in the 2020 election, this time around officials intend to have the results in on Election Day, by midnight.

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