What's Going On? Maricopa County Recorder Makes Strange Move Amid Controversy Over Arizona's Slow Ballot Count

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer deleted his X account on Thursday, while hundreds of thousands of ballots in the county still remain uncounted.

The slow pace of Maricopa County’s vote reporting has sparked concerns, especially among supporters of GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake, who is in a closely contested race against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego. Supporters worry that the delay could allow for potential manipulation of results.

Lake entered Election Day neck-and-neck with Gallego, sometimes even edging out a slight lead in certain polls. Gallego, however, held a 2.6-point lead in the Real Clear Politics (RCP) average of polls going into late October.

Interestingly, while the RCP average showed Republican Donald Trump with only a 3-point lead in Arizona, he now holds a 6.1-point advantage over Democrat Kamala Harris in the actual vote count. If a similar underestimation applies to Lake, she could be leading Gallego.

Currently, Gallego is ahead by 1.5 points, with the race sitting at 49.7 percent to Lake’s 48.2 percent.

According to The New York Times, 77 percent of votes have been counted as of Friday morning, leaving hundreds of thousands yet to be tallied. Arizona’s process allows voters to drop off mail-in ballots until 7 p.m. on Election Day, creating a delay as officials verify voter identities before counting the ballots.

Garrett Archer, a data analyst for KNXV-TV and former Arizona secretary of state election official, shared on X Thursday that Maricopa County still has approximately 472,000 ballots left to count.

Richer, who lost his re-election bid in the Republican primary to Justin Heap, explained his decision to delete his X account in a statement to the Phoenix New Times, a liberal outlet. He called it a “post-election promise to myself.”

“For four years, I tried to answer as many questions as possible and be as accessible as possible,” Richer explained. “I’ve paid my ticket. I stayed on to make sure I answered as many voter questions as possible through Election Day. I get to do what makes me happy now.”

Richer previously faced scrutiny after voting machines in Maricopa County malfunctioned on Election Day in 2022, when Lake narrowly lost the governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs by less than one percent.

In Arizona, Republicans generally cast more votes on Election Day compared to Democrats, which was notable in the 2022 contest.

Additionally, Richer faced backlash for co-founding a political action committee with Bill Gates, then-chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, in advance of the 2022 elections. The committee aimed to oppose candidates aligned with Trump, a group that included Lake.

Arizona state Senator Justine Wadsack commented on Richer’s account deletion, posting on X, “Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer has deleted his personal X account. The ballot drops are at a standstill. What is going on?”

Lake campaign co-chair Floyd Brown responded to Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton’s request for an update on Maricopa County’s ballot count, posting on X, “They won’t tell us how many people have voted, much less how they voted. No transparency, no accountability.”

Lake has been narrowing Gallego’s lead as more ballots are counted from across Arizona, particularly in Maricopa County, which holds about 60 percent of the state’s voters.