Midterm election ballot counting could take weeks in Maricopa County

There was a massive increase in voter turnout on Tuesday’s midterm election.

Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes says about 278,000 voters cast their ballots at the polls. That’s a large improvement from the previous midterm where Fontes says there were only 165,000 ballots issued.

The recorder’s office also says they took in 1,000,000 early ballots by 8 p.m. Tuesday.

A spokesperson with the recorder’s office says there’s no clear number on the number of ballots left to count. In a Tuesday night interview, Fontes estimated about 500,000 still remained and poll employees would be back to work early Wednesday.

It’s also unclear how many early ballots were dropped off at polling sites on Election Day and how many votes are in each data pack that needs to be counted. A data pack has the ballots that were issued to voters in person on Tuesday.

The recorder’s office says they’ll have a better idea on Thursday and it could take about two weeks to count every ballot.