Why did it take so long to determine which party controls both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives? Really blame California, Arizona, Nevada, Washington and the entire West Coast for mail-in voting.
Actually, don’t blame them. This is how the 2022 election will work.
Blame an evenly divided voter: If the election hadn’t been so close, it wouldn’t have taken so long to figure out who won.
CNN still hasn’t predicted who will control the House or Senate, in large part because of the competition on the West Coast.
Read CNN’s Jeremy Herb and Paul LeBlanc for a more detailed report on the state of Friday’s game.
Might be worth the wait: Arguably, the benefits of knowing who won on Election Day outweigh the cost savings of getting more people to vote and not having to staff so many polling stations.
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates told CNN’s Sarah Sidner on Thursday why it took longer to count mail-in ballots and ballots placed in ballot drop boxes on Election Day and Election Day. Maricopa is Arizona’s most populous county, including Phoenix.
“That’s how we conduct elections in Arizona,” Gates told Sidner. “If people don’t like that, they can go to the legislature and have them pass new laws.”
It’s a process that has been in place in Maricopa County since the 1990s, he said. It is also overseen by Republican and Democratic officials.
Verify signature: Gates said election officials were busy working behind him at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, and Gates said those mail-in ballots that were dropped before and Tuesday didn’t even begin the important signature verification process until the Wednesday after the election day.
“We’ve got experts going by here and comparing the signatures on the outside of the ballot envelopes with the signatures on our voter registration documents,” Gates said. “It’s going to take a while because we have to do it.”
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, most states have some sort of signature verification system in place for their absentee and mail-in ballots.
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