By Votebeat
Four days after the election, with several congressional and state contests yet to be called, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen declared that it had “taken too much time” to count ballots.
So Petersen made a promise to voters: He would reintroduce bills in the upcoming legislative session “to get election results, night of.”
It was perfectly normal to not yet have final results at that point. In fact, it has sometimes taken as long as two weeks to finish counting ballots in the state, a timeline similar to that of other states that are friendly to voting by mail, such as California and Utah.
But as national attention on Arizona, a swing state where contests can be close, has ramped up, pressure has mounted to count faster. And as unexpected delays sprang up across the state this year, including in rural counties that typically count quickly, the longer timeline fueled consternation among candidates and voters waiting for final results.
