Tweets from Stephen Richer, Maricopa County Recorder:
After the polls closed last night, we shifted back to my operations (Early Vote). Last night, we took in over 275,000 early ballots dropped off yesterday, Election Day. These are different from the approximately 230,000 people that the Board of Supervisors... 1/X
...had yesterday who fed their ballots into the tabulation machines. These ballots come back in green envelopes with a barcode and signed. Last night from midnight to 5:00 AM, we sorted those 275,000+ ballots so they could be scanned in and image captured for the signature 2/X
We began signature verification of those 275,000+ at 7:00 AM. They must be signature verified to confirm identity. Once they are signature verified, they are sent ahead to a bipartisan ballot processing team. That team removes the ballot from the envelope... 3/X
Makes sure the ballot is the correct style, make sure the ballot isn't damaged (e.g. torn), or unreadable (e.g. red ink or coffee stain). Then sent ahead to tabulation. We also sent ahead for tabulation the approximately 86,000 early ballots that we received ... 4/X
On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Those we had already signature verified and processed and sent ahead to the Board for tabulation. The Board is doing that now. We are also finishing up the processing of the approximately 50,000 early ballot returns on Monday before... 5/X
Election Day. We will have those done today and send them over to the Board for tabulation. For those keeping tally, that's approximately:
86,000 Early Ballot drop offs Friday, Sat, Sun
50,000 Monday drop-offs
275,000+ Election Day drop-offs Cont. 6/X
The Board will also tabulate any in-person ballots it received yesterday that were not read by the tabulators (approximately 17,000). The 275,000+ Early Ballots dropped off on Election Day represents the most ever Early Ballots returned on Election Day. Cont. 7/X
It is 100,000 more than were dropped off on Election Day in November 2020. As this number grows (despite my efforts), we will likely want to have a policy conversation about which we value more: - Convenience of dropping off Early Ballot on Election Day - -Or higher percentage of returns with 24 hours of Election Night.
