Maricopa County prepares for challenges during general election day | 2024 Election

PHOENIX - On Sept. 9, members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors adopted the 2024 General Election Plan, and this year's ballot is making things a bit more challenging for poll workers and voters alike.

County officials are not using the word ‘complicated’ to explain the election. Rather, they are calling this election ‘unique.' The county is anticipating the casting of 2.1 million ballots, but with ballots being two pages in length, it could take each voter 12 minutes to complete the ballot.

Although 50% of participating voters fill out their ballot at home, hundreds of thousands may choose to drop them off on Nov. 5, inundating poll workers with people and paper.

County gets ready for potential troubles

"There’s always problems, there’s always mistakes," said Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman. "It's a gigantic people operation. That started on Election Day."

Maricopa County officials have listed some of the measures they are taking this election. To start, every feature of Election Day has been increased. There are more polling places, more booths, more tabulators, more workers, more ink and more paper.

However, the board was warned to prepare for bottlenecks at the polling locations, inside the voting booths, and with the tabulators. While some voters may wait in line 20 minutes, others could stand there for up to an hour.

"We tend to hear kind of the bad news about the challenges that we faced in elections, but I think that’s good news that we ought to talk more about that. We’re having these record levels of participation," said Supervisor Bill Gates.

Issues county officials could face

There are two issues county officials want to get in front of involving a two-page ballot, like situations where one page of the ballot may be accepted, but the other page is not accepted.

In that scenario, there’s no need to worry, as a trained poll worker will step in to help. Even so, that will slow down the process.

Another issue the county could face involves a scenario where the number of voters that participated may not match with the number of ballots, because of the possibility that not everyone will fill out both pages.

As for counting the ballots, officials estimate it will take twice as long to process all the ballots.

"We’re following state law, so if something takes a little longer this November, it's not because of anything nefarious or any mistakes that are going on. It's just the way it is in Arizona, and we’ll get you results as soon as possible," said Maricopa County Executive Director Zach Schira.

For those who want to avoid the lines and make life a little easier on the poll workers, ballots can be dropped off early, on or before Oct. 29. In one month, the ballots will be sent out.

County officials also say people should not expect any of the races to be called on election night, as the races are expected to be extremely close.