By Corinne Murdock |
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) said Arizona’s elections reminded him of a third-world country, calling the state “an embarrassment.”
Rubio told Fox News on Wednesday that the chaos of the state’s election processes confused him.
“I don’t have anything against the state of Arizona, great people, but it seems like you guys are reporting on some third-world country that’s having one of these elections where every day they’re finding new boxes here, new votes there,” stated Rubio.
Rubio won re-election on Tuesday, leading with greater margins in historically blue, Hispanic counties. His state’s election law enables processing of early votes ahead of Election Day, enabling them to count the last of 7.5 million votes in a matter of hours.
Rubio’s not alone. Voters may feel frustrated by the Secretary of State’s trackers for general election results and ballot progress estimates. For some counties, the percentage of ballots counted have fluctuated, increasing then dropping as more ballots are reported.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, most of the counties didn’t report estimates for the total ballots counted, let alone the types of ballots left to process. As of press time, seven counties haven’t reported the total percentage of ballots counted. Only one county, Greenlee, has 100 percent of ballots processed: accounting for about 2,500 votes.
The other counties who issued percentages of ballots counted range in completion from 70 to 90 percent.
Perhaps the slowest to process their ballots may turn out to be Pima County. Their recorder informed reporters on Wednesday that it may take another week before they finish counting.
As of press time, the following Republican candidates are behind: Blake Masters for U.S. Senate, Kari Lake for Governor, Mark Finchem for Secretary of State, Abraham Hamadeh for Attorney General, David Schweikert for U.S. House District 1, Kelly Cooper for U.S. House District 4, and Robert Scantlebury for State Senate District 9. Most of these races remain close and difficult to call due to outstanding ballots.
Other Republicans currently leading their races include: Eli Crane for U.S. House District 2, David Farnsworth for State Senate District 10, Anthony Kern for State Senate District 27, Janae Shamp for State Senate District 29, and Wendy Rogers for State Senate District 7.
Both parties have expressed confidence that the outstanding ballots will end up in their favor.
Ahead of Thursday’s update to the election results, Secretary of State and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs issued another update in a series of pleas with voters to have patience for the ballot processing.
Lake took the opposite stance. She insisted that counties were “dragging their feet” on ballot processing. Lake insisted that Election Day ballots would give her the lead on Hobbs.
Like Lake, Masters expressed confidence that the in-person ballots and those mail-in ballots dropped off on Election Day would weigh in his favor.
Kelly expressed confidence that he would ultimately prevail, though he didn’t offer thoughts on the breakdown of the remaining ballots.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
