Arizona Holds Its Breath for Election Results

Arizona is on edge, waiting for the final counts in its elections. As of Saturday morning, Donald Trump was leading with 52. 7% of the vote, while Kamala Harris had 46%. But there's still a way to go before the state can call it. Around 602, 000 ballots are yet to be counted. The state flipped to Democrats in 2020, so everyone's watching closely. In the key US Senate race, Republican Kari Lake is trailing Democrat Ruben Gallego by about 33, 000 votes. This race got interesting when Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema decided not to run again this year.

Maricopa County, the fourth largest in the US, is slowing things down. It's got 351, 000 ballots left to count. Some haven't even been verified yet. County officials expect to keep counting for another 10 to 13 days. The long process is partly because of Arizona's two-page ballot, which takes longer to count. Cochise County faced mechanical issues with their tabulators, making the counting even slower. Arizona also deals with a lot of late early votes – ballots filled out early but not dropped off until election day. Republican state representative Alexander Kolodin is thinking about a proposal to make early ballots due before election day. This would give election officials more time to verify them. Despite the tension, Arizona hasn't seen the same level of unrest or claims of election worker intimidation as in 2020.

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