Arizona Secretary of State: Most Counties to Stop Counting by This Weekend

A voter receives assistance from an election worker at a voting center in Grand Central Market in Los Angeles, California, on Nov. 3, 2020. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs announced that between 400,000 to 450,000 ballots that still need to be counted around the state.

About 300,000 ballots are from Maricopa County, the largest county in Arizona, Hobbs said Thursday evening.

“It sounds like most of the counties are wrapping up tabulation, the bulk of tabulation, by this weekend, Maricopa County included except for some provisional ballots that they actually have until Tuesday to resolve. And so, we’re going to know results soon,” she told CNN.

After Thursday and Friday, she added, “We'll have a really, more clear picture on what Arizona looks like.”

Election data shows Democratic challenger Joe Biden is leading President Donald Trump by about 60,000 votes.

The Associated Press and Fox News both called the state for Biden early on. However, other organizations including CNN, ABC, and Decision Desk have not.

Trump allies and the Arizona GOP have both called on AP and Fox to retract their call for Biden. Arizona’s 11 Electoral College votes are crucial for Trump’s path to victory.

Trump received “over 59 [percent] of this first small AZ vote dump, above the 57 [percent] pace he needs to surpass Biden & win Arizona,” Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh wrote. He added that “5 of 7 election decision orgs haven’t called AZ. Fox & AP should rescind theirs … Fox & AP made a hasty call in AZ, a state the President will still win.”

The Associated Press attempted to explain its projection in a story on Wednesday morning, citing “an analysis of ballots cast statewide” that “concluded there were not enough outstanding to allow Trump to catch up.”

“Arizona has a long political history of voting Republican,” AP wrote, adding that changing demographics such as “a fast-growing Latino population and a boom of new residents—some fleeing the skyrocketing cost of living in neighboring California—have made the state friendlier to Democrats.”

But analysis firm Data Orbital, a Phoenix-based company, said Trump has a chance of winning in the state.

“People are making a mistake with equating the ballots that are left that came in early [with] the early ballots that were sent back in the mail,” George Khalaf, the president of Data Orbital, told The Epoch Times.

“Unlike in other states, it’s actually the inverse in Arizona. Democrats dominated early ballots that were mailed back earlier in the cycle, and Republicans absolutely dominated ballots that arrived between last Friday and election day,” he added. “Like how they dominated Election Day itself.”