America Waits as Arizona Vote Count Continues for the Fourth Day

11:30 p.m. Eastern, Update: The Associated Press and other outlets have called the Arizona U.S. Senate race for Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) as a batch of 74,951 Maricopa County votes broke Democrats’ way. The AP also declared Democrat Adrian Fontes as the winner of the secretary of state race. ABC 15 Data Analyst Garret Archer reports the 74,951 vote breakdown in the four major statewide races to be:

U.S. Senate Race:

• Masters: 43.4 percent
• Kelly: 54.7 percent

Governor’s Race:

• Republican Kari Lake: 46 percent
• Democrat Katie Hobbs: 54 percent

Attorney General Race:

• Republican Abe Hamadeh: 46.5 percent
• Democrat Adrian Fontes: 56.3 percent

Secretary of State

• Republican Mark Finchem: 43.7 percent
• Democrat Adrian Fontes: 56.3 percent

The full election results were as follows as of 10:55 p.m. Eastern, with an estimated 83 percent of the vote reported, according to the New York Times:

• Kelly: 1,128,917 – 51.8 percent
• Masters: 1,005,001 – 46.1 percent
• Victor: 46,189 – 2.1 percent

Governor’s Race:

• Hobbs: 1,100,005 – 50.7 percent
• Lake: 1,068,908 – 49.3 percent

Attorney General Race:

• Mayes: 1,074,673 – 50.45 percent
• Hamadeh: 1,055,522 – 49.55

Secretary of State Race:

• Fontes: 1,129,144 – 52.8 percent
• Finchem: 1,011,019 – 47.2 percent

In its unofficial results published in a press release, Maricopa County officials report there  “are an estimated 265,000-275,000 remaining ballots,” including:

• Estimated Election Day ballots to be reported: 5,000
• Estimated early ballots left to process and tabulate: 254,000
• Estimated number of early ballots left to cure: 13,000
• Estimated provisional ballots left to research: 1,114 (7,885 total)

Archer noted that “the GOP cavalry is coming” in another tweet as 114,000 Election Day drop-off ballots, which have yet to be tabulated, will “break in favor of” Lake. It is unclear when these will be tabulated, Archer added.

This is also big. The next batch of 114k late early drop-offs that were transmitted to the elections department will break in favor of @KariLake.

Important note: We do not know when these ballots will be tabulated, but the GOP cavalry is coming. https://t.co/CNM5kTJcaZ

— The AZ – abc15 – Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) November 12, 2022

 

9:20 p.m., Eastern Update: In a statement sent out from the Republican National Committee (RNC) Friday night, Lawyer Harmeet Dhillon declared that RNC and the Republican Party of Arizona “demand” 24-hour vote-counting efforts be implemented until tabulation is finished.

“This election has exposed deep flaws in Maricopa County’s election administration,” her statement begins. “Arizona deserves better — transparency, certainty, efficiency — and most importantly, an accurate and prompt announcement of election results that can be accepted by all voters.”

“The RNC and the Republican Party of Arizona demand that around-the-clock shifts of ballot processing be pressed into service until all votes have been counted, accompanied by complete transparency and regular, accurate public updates,” Dhillon stated.

“We will not hesitate to take legal action if necessary to protect Arizona voters’ right to have their ballots counted,” she added.

 

• Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ): 1,069,075 – 51.6 percent
• Republican Blake Masters: 958,081 – 46.3 percent
• Libertarian Marc Victor: 44,123 – 2.1 percent

• Democrat Secretary of State Katie Hobbs: 1,041,266 – 50.5 percent
• Republican Kari Lake: 1,019,288 – 49.5 percent

• Democrat Kris Mayes: 1,017,995 – 50.28 percent
• Republican Abe Hamadeh: 1,006,593 – 49.72

• Democrat Adrian Fontes: 1,069,413 – 52.6 percent
• Republican Mark Finchem: 964,430 – 47.4 percent

It all is going to come down to how those Election Day drop-off voters, how did they resemble Election Day in-person voters. We have good reason to believe that these people might be fired-up, disproportionately four-out-of-four Republican voters. And, you know, we know they’re going to break our way, but if they break our way enough, then we’re going to win this election, and we have reason to think that that’s true.

Now we know that Pima County is sitting on somewhere around 50,000 late early ballots; those aren’t going to be great for Republicans, although perhaps they won’t be terrible. We also know Pima is sitting on 44,000 Election Day drop-offs, which we expect to be good, maybe not good by Maricopa Election Day drop-off margins, but pretty good. So I think we can expect a few drops from Pima that don’t look great for Republicans, but they are quickly running out of Democrat-favored ballots.

And Maricopa appears to have exhausted ballots that will be friendly to Democrats, so I think we’re about to start crunching through in Maricopa the hundreds of thousands of Republican four-of-four voters, and if those numbers are good enough, I’m going to be the next senator from Arizona. If not, we always knew it was going to be a close race, but our message is…Conservatives looking at this race know it is entirely too close to call. It’s probably going to come down to 10,000 either way, and we feel good; we have a path. There’s a media narrative that’s trying to discount that, and we’re ignoring that.

• Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ): 1,059,557 – 51.7 percent
• Republican Blake Masters: 944,580 – 46.1 percent
• Libertarian Marc Victor: 43,553 – 2.1 percent

• Democrat Secretary of State Katie Hobbs: 1,031,985 – 50.7 percent
• Republican Kari Lake: 1,005,075 – 49.3 percent

• Democrat Kris Mayes: 1,009,039 – 50.41 percent
• Republican Abe Hamadeh: 992,583 – 49.59

• Democrat Adrian Fontes: 1,060,093 – 52.7 percent
• Republican Mark Finchem: 950,754 – 47.3 percent

The nation continues to await election results from Arizona as vote counting continues for the fourth day in the Grand Canyon State.

The results were as follows in the major statewide races as of 1:13 p.m. Eastern, Friday, according to the New York Times:

U.S. Senate Race – 82 percent reporting:

• Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ): 1,059,387 – 51.7 percent
• Republican Blake Masters: 944,350 – 46.1 percent
• Libertarian Marc Victor: 43,542 – 2.1 percent

Governor’s Race – 82 percent reporting:

• Democrat Secretary of State Katie Hobbs: 1,031,816 – 50.7 percent
• Republican Kari Lake: 1,004,837 – 49.3 percent

Attorney General Race – 82 percent reporting:

• Democrat Kris Mayes: 1,008,880 – 50.41 percent
• Republican Abe Hamadeh: 992,338 – 49.59

Secretary of State Race – 82 percent reporting:

• Democrat Adrian Fontes: 1,059,922 – 52.7 percent
• Republican Mark Finchem: 950,521 – 47.3 percent

Below is a percentage breakdown of tabulated votes by county as of 1:13 p.m. Eastern, per the Times:

• Apache: 80 percent
• Cochise: 81 percent
• Coconino:  78 percent
• Gila: >95 percent
• Graham: >95 percent
• Greenlee: >95 percent
• La Paz: 70 percent
• Maricopa: 86 percent
• Mohave: 85 percent
• Navajo: 86 percent
• Pima: 73 percent
• Pinal: 88 percent
• Santa Cruz: >95 percent
• Yavapai: 90 percent
• Yuma: 80 percent

ABC 15 data analyst Garrett Archer reported there were still an estimated 407,664 ballots outstanding in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, heading into Thursday night. The figure included approximately 290,000 early ballots dropped off on Election Day, and the other outstanding ballots were comprised of early votes received before Election Day.

Results for nearly 79,000 pre-Election Day early votes from Maricopa County were processed Thursday night, as Archer reported. A Maricopa County spokesman confirmed to Breitbart News before the drop that it would “include early ballots received on Monday, Sunday and some of Saturday.”

According to Archer, the breakdown of the batch was as follows:

The 290,000 early votes that were submitted on Election Day, which many believe will break towards the GOP candidates, were not included in Thursday’s tabulation results. The spokesman told Breitbart News that results from these “are likely to start being reported” Friday. Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates told CNN on Thursday that the count will spill into next week.

Maricopa County did not immediately respond to Breitbart News’s comment request on Friday asking what time results can be expected later in the day and precisely how many pre-Election Day early votes are still outstanding. This article will be updated as soon as a spokesperson responds.

Of note, all counties are processing drop-off ballots in the order in which they came in. In other words, early votes received last weekend and Monday are processed for signature verification and sent for tabulation before the early votes received on Election Day.

Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report called the U.S. Senate Race at 12:46 a.m. Eastern and declared Kelly the victor. As of this writing, it appears as though Wasserman is the only one to call the race, and Breitbart News has not declared a winner.