Arizona Drags Feet When Counting Votes

Arizona is really dragging their feet when it comes to finalizing the vote count from Tuesday's general election. As of Thursday morning,  there are some 628,000 statewide votes that have not been counted,.  most of those (470,000) being from Maricopa County.

While it's not as bad as Florida's hanging chad fiasco of 2000, it is still kind of embarrassing to Arizonan that votes are still being counted, even though those votes will not influence the final election results.

Well, they won't influence the presidential outcome, but they may decide some close municipal races.

"Because many voters receive early ballots in the mail, the ballot count stretches beyond the first night. Many ballots returned early were counted by Tuesday night, but ballots dropped off in the final days are held to be counted after Election Day. About 2.1 million early ballots were mailed to voters statewide and 1.7 million were returned by Election Day, said Matt Roberts, spokesman for the Arizona Secretary of State's Office.

Most large counties, such as Maricopa and Pima, will begin counting early ballots again Thursday, after verifying voters' signatures on the envelopes. Provisional ballots must be verified, then counted, and it will be well into next week until those votes are tallied."-AZ Republic