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Maricopa County estimated vote counting would run around 10 more days before every ballot is counted
President-elect Donald Trump won the 2024 US elections by defeating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. (Image: AP/File)
The election results in the swing state of Arizona, which will determine the final margin of victory for Republican President-elect Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris, have not yet been announced. The early ballots that get dropped off on election day at the polls are to be blamed for it.
Stir in increasingly competitive contests, and it adds up to days’ worth of waiting for a definitive result. Maricopa County estimated vote counting would run around 10 more days before every ballot is counted. Arizona — with 11 electoral votes — has mixed it up in the last two elections at least.
Donald Trump has won 301 electoral votes and Kamala Harris bagged 226. Trump broke the so-called ‘blue wall’ and won six of the seven swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Nevada, and Wisconsin), including the Democrat strongholds Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Only the seventh battleground, Arizona, results remain to be called.
Why Is There A Delay In Vote Counting?
American media outlets said it may take a few days for the final votes in these two states to be tallied. In Arizona, most voters cast their ballot by mail and counting typically takes days. State election officials said full tabulation could take 10 to 13 days.
The New York Times said a majority of the voters cast their ballot by mail in Arizona. Officials at Maricopa County, which is the state’s largest, said before the election that full tabulation could take more than a week, it said.
Taking a closer look, in 2020 as well, nearly 90 percent of the voters in Arizona cast their ballot early and by mail. While officials can start processing and tabulating mail ballots on receiving them, the results cannot be released until an hour after polling closes. And any mail ballot received on Election Day itself cannot be processed until polls have closed. This results in a delay in the counting of votes and can lead to a large number of ballots being tallied later.
Trump’s Win
Donald Trump was elected president, capping a remarkable comeback four years after he was voted out of the White House and ushering in a new American leadership likely to test democratic institutions at home and relations abroad.
Trump, 78, recaptured the White House on Wednesday by securing more than the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency, Edison Research projected, following a campaign of dark rhetoric that deepened the polarization in the country.
