Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Officials in Arizona’s most populous county warned on Oct. 22 that it may take between 10 and 13 days to tabulate the results of the Nov. 5 election.

County officials are asking “for the community’s patience,” Maricopa County Deputy Elections Director Jennifer Liewer said in a press conference on Oct. 22.

An election worker scans mail in ballots at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in Phoenix on Nov. 7, 2022. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

“This year, we do expect that it will take between 10 and 13 days to complete tabulation of all of the ballots that come in,” she said.

“We want to make sure that this is a secure process, but we also want to make sure that it is an accurate process.”

Assistant Maricopa County Manager Zach Schira said at the press conference, “If I have one message for voters here today, it is this: that the longer ballots and higher interest in this 2024 general election will create longer lines on Election Day, and that’s okay.”

Schira said that if people want to avoid the long lines, they are advised to vote by mail or early in person.

Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates said the tabulation may take so long because the ballot is two pages, there are dozens of contests per ballot, and there is heightened interest in the presidential election. He said more than 2.1 million Maricopa voters are expected to cast their ballot for the Nov. 5 contest, noting that 400,000 people so far have voted.

The “top message for voters” on Oct. 22 is “if you want to save time and avoid lines, vote early,” the county wrote on social media platform X. Voters have until Oct. 25 to request an early ballot, it noted.

Early voting data compiled by the University of Florida show that Republicans have a 38,000-vote advantage in terms of early voting in Arizona. Only mail-in ballots have been returned so far, but the data show that 41.9 percent of early ballots have been submitted by Republicans, compared with 36.3 by Democrats. Independent or third-party voters make up about 21.8 percent of the total.

Arizona, considered a battleground state, is again expected to be a close race during the 2024 election. State election officials in 2020 certified the race in Arizona for Joe Biden over President Donald Trump by a margin of about 11,000 votes.

In the aftermath of the 2020 contest, Trump and other Republicans alleged that Arizona’s election was marred by voter fraud, sparking a number of lawsuits against Arizona and Maricopa County officials that were all ultimately dismissed.

For that election, county officials certified the results 17 days after Election Day, according to a statement issued on Nov. 20, 2020. A significant number of voters cast ballots early in person or by mail in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated stay-at-home and lockdown orders and rules.

Maricopa County, which encompasses the city of Phoenix, is by far the most populous area in Arizona. As of March, it had more than 4.5 million residents, which is more than half the state’s entire population.

Trump is expected to campaign in Arizona on Oct. 24, holding a rally at Arizona State University’s arena in Tempe. Harris visited Arizona near the U.S.–Mexico border in late September.

Before his trip to Arizona, Trump is scheduled to headline a rally in Duluth, Georgia, on Oct. 23 with guests Tucker Carlson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Vice President Kamala Harris is also focusing on battleground states and will be traveling to the outskirts of Philadelphia to participate in a live CNN town hall event with undecided voters from Pennsylvania. An interview she recorded with Telemundo, a Spanish language network, on Oct. 22 is also due to air.

Reuters contributed to this report.