Arizona’s Secretary of State announced late Wednesday that upwards of 600,000 ballots have yet to be processed in Arizona.
About a hundred activists rallied outside of a Maricopa County elections facility on Wednesday afternoon, in the hopes of questioning election officials. Since the summer, these activists have worked to boost Latino voter turnout and to ultimately oust Sheriff Joe Arpaio. That part didn’t happen. But still, they want to know how many ballots haven't yet been counted.
Brendan Walsh, one of the organizers, said, " We could do what some people are saying, it is going to work itself out, it is not going to impact the results of the election, but at a certain point it is just too many."
A few hours later, election officials announced that in Maricopa County alone, 344,000 early ballots haven't been tallied. Plus 115,000 voters cast provisional ballots and those still have to be verified and counted, too. Both figures are higher than what the county recorder predicted, and the number of ballots still in play statewide is having an impact.
"I had no idea…there would be this many uncounted ballots," said Mark Napier, a Republican who thought he had already lost his bid to be Pima County Sheriff. He retracted his concession on Wednesday afternoon when he realized tens of thousands of early ballots in his county had not yet been counted.
"Since we are only down by about 8,000 votes, that is a lot of votes still out there<" Napier added. "I want to make sure that all the voters are heard before I concede this race."
In Arizona, county recorders have until Nov 16 to count the ballots before the results are formally certified.