Maricopa County will need more time to count ballots, and Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett says they can have it.
This, according to spokespersons for both Bennett and the Maricopa County Elections Office.
"[County Recorder] Helen Purcell has indicated they'll need more time," SOS spokesman Matt Roberts told me today. "We encourage them to take all the time they need to verify their ballots."
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County Elections spokeswoman Yvonne Reed confirmed this.
"We will process and tabulate until the last has been counted," Reed stated.
Most of what the county has left are provisionals. According to the latest update, around 120,000 ballots remain, 103,000 provisionals and 17,000 earlies.
Today, 9,867 early ballots and 11,162 provisional ballots were tabulated by the county, according to Reed.
Statewide, Bennett's office estimated that "163,482 early and provisional ballots" are left to process.
Wednesday was the last day for people to present proper ID at county offices so that their "conditional provisional" ballot could be counted. That's a ballot cast by someone lacking the necessary identification under state law.
"We had 1,035 conditional provisional ballots and 55 voters came in with proper identification," Reed explained.