CNN
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New batches of ballots were reported late Thursday night in Arizona and Nevada — states with major constituencies that determine control of the Senate — but there were enough pending votes to summon the Senate and the governor. It’s not yet clear when the processing votes will be tallied for contests in those states.
House control is also still unbalanced, as votes are tallied in states such as California. Republicans appear to be on their way to a majority, but with more than 20 congressional elections still pending, they have yet to secure enough victories to take control. The close race has added serious complications to Republican leader Kevin McCarthy’s bid for the next chairmanship.
Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, is expected to begin reporting votes from a significant batch of about 290,000 early ballots submitted on Election Day. The partisan composition of these votes can determine who wins state senate and gubernatorial elections.
More votes are expected to be reported on Friday as the tally continues. Here’s what you need to know about where things are.
The biggest reason it takes so long is the way states process ballots not cast at the polling place on Election Day, including both early and mail-in ballots.
If the race is within 1-2 percentage points, these unprocessed ballots are enough to make the election unpredictable. Of course, the delay was expected: Election Day 2020, after the news outlets declared Joe Biden the winner of the presidential election, after mail-in ballots surged amid the pandemic. It lasted until Saturday.
In Arizona, CNN and other news networks are still calling the Senate race between Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly and Republican challenger Blake Masters, or the gubernatorial race between Democrat Katie Hobbs and Republican Kari Lake. plug.
The CNN Decision Desk estimated that about 540,000 votes had yet to be counted as of late Thursday night. The majority of those votes, about 350,000, are in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix.
The largest chunk of uncounted ballots, about 290,000 votes, were cast at vote centers on Election Day. A senior official told CNN late Thursday that he expects Maricopa County to begin releasing the first results of the outstanding ballots on Friday night.
Maricopa County Oversight Board Chairman Bill Gates said:
These ballots can be crucial in determining who wins the statewide races for governor and Senate. Today’s vote strongly favors the Republican Party.
Additionally, Maricopa County had approximately 17,000 ballots that were not read by the counters on Election Day due to printer errors. Those ballots still need to be counted.
Maricopa County updated an additional tranche of ballots with over 78,000 votes on Thursday night.
Pima County, Arizona’s second most populous county and home of Tucson, reported a new batch of 20,000 votes Thursday night. Election administrator Constance Hargrove told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and John King that the county said he could report batches of about 20,000 votes per day, with another 20,000 dropping on Friday. said he expected.
“We’ll be working through the weekend and probably by Monday morning we’ll have passed most, if not all, of those ballots,” Hargrove said.
The delay in calling the race in Arizona sparked criticism and intrigue. Some of them are reminiscent of the barbaric and baseless allegations made in Arizona after the 2020 election.
Maricopa County Elections officials said the woman wearing glasses in the livestream of the county’s tallying facility was a falsehood circulating on right-wing social media that suggested it was Hobbes, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate and current secretary of state. exposed the allegations of
“Not all women with glasses are Katie Hobbs,” said the official Maricopa County Twitter account. murmured I will reply on Thursday night. “I can confirm that this was a party observer. Please refrain from speculating about workers who happen to wear glasses.”
Lake, a Republican gubernatorial candidate who has embraced former President Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, said Thursday on Charlie Kirk’s right-wing talk show: They don’t want to publicize the truth that we won. There is no evidence that election officials deliberately delayed the reporting of results.
At a press conference on Thursday, Gates said, “Frankly, it’s uncomfortable for Kali Lake to say that we’re taking this slowly when these people behind me are working 14-18 hour workdays. ‘ said.
Gates explained why Arizona takes longer to count ballots than states such as Florida, which reported most of the results on election night. He pointed out that Florida does not allow mail-in ballots to be mailed on Election Day, while Arizona does. must be validated and then aggregated, which slows down the process.
Early voting also closes on the Sunday before Election Day in Florida, but you can vote until Election Day in Arizona.
“Everybody is still looking at Maricopa County because there are so many close races. In other states like Florida, those races were a blast. said Gates.
In Nevada, the CNN Decision Desk estimated there were about 95,000 votes outstanding as of Thursday night.
Clark County, the state’s largest county, which includes Las Vegas, still has more than 50,000 ballots left, Clark County Registrar Joe Gloria said Thursday.
Nevada law allows you to receive your vote-by-mail ballot until Saturday as long as it is postmarked on Election Day. However, many ballots arriving now are disqualified because they were postmarked after Election Day.
Jamie Rodriguez, interim registrar of ballots for Washoe County, said the county canceled 400 mail-in ballots on Thursday, about two-thirds of the mail-in ballots it received.
There are still about 22,000 ballots left in Washoe County, which includes Reno, and the county is expected to pass most of them on Friday, Rodriguez said.
Clark County added nearly 12,000 votes Thursday night. The county said it will provide an update on Friday about the remaining ballots to count.
major silver states, including the Senate election between Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Mast and Republican challenger Adam Laxalt, and the gubernatorial election between Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak and Republican Joe Lombardo. No elections have been called as of Friday morning.
Control of the Senate, which falls to the runoff votes of Nevada, Arizona and possibly Georgia in December, was expected to be a toss-up ahead of Election Day. But the closer-than-expected race for control of the House made McCarthy’s quest for presidency all the more difficult, even if the Republicans won a majority.
CNN’s Melanie Zanona and Manu Raju report that members of the pro-Trump Freedom Caucus have withheld their support for McCarthy’s bid for the presidency and have begun offering a list of demands. ing. They eventually win the House of Commons with a small majority.
McCarthy and his team are confident he will get the vote to become chairman. But conservative hardliners, emboldened by the likely Republican majority in the House, threaten to force him into a deal to weaken the chairmanship he has long resisted.
For McCarthy, the final composition of the House is important. Because there is a way for the House to elect a Speaker. That would require not only a majority of the ruling party, but a majority of the entire House of Representatives, which means he needs 218 votes. With a double-digit Republican majority, McCarthy can afford to lose a few defectors. However, a small majority gives the single member, and the Freedom Caucus, more power to make demands and threaten to withhold support.
Many major congressional districts have yet to convene and some remain very thin and could head for a recount. As of ET, Republican Rep. Lauren Boubert was leading by just 1,122 votes. Voting continues in the constituencies.
