The count is underway, but who won the race for President of the United States may not be officially known for over a week and a half, according to some projections.
Certain battleground states, which are likely to determine the fate of the presidential election, don’t count mail-in ballots before election night and can have slow processes on Election Day. Unlike swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and North Carolina, Arizona counts early ballots immediately upon receiving them with the exception of on Election Day.
Arizona has a regulation that prohibits the collection of votes dropped in the secure ballot drop boxes on Election Day until the polls close and all voters have left. In the November 2022 Midterm Election, almost 20% of Maricopa County ballots cast were dropped off on Election Day.
Arizonans can expect results to drop sporadically after the first batch comes out at 8 p.m. Maricopa County, where all four major ASU campuses are located, has around 2.4 million registered voters — making it one of the largest counties in the country.
On Nov. 4 polls showed former President Donald Trump led Arizona over Vice President Kamala Harris by at least 2.5 points. Trump would flip the state, which President Joe Biden won in 2020, but he won in 2016.
The path to 270 electoral votes has many possible ends to the election — not including some surprise polls toward the end of the cycle, like that in Iowa, which showed states could have unexpected finishes.
In 2020, the election wasn't called for Biden until four days after Election Day — Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona were among the slowest states during this presidential election.
Edited by George Headley, Sophia Braccio and Natalia Jarrett.
Reach the reporter at alysa.horton@gmail.com and follow @alysa_horton on X.
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Alysa is a senior studying journalism and mass communication with a minor in political science. This is her fifth semester with The State Press. She has also worked at The Arizona Republic.
