Here are how many Maricopa County ballots will be released on first drop of Election Day

PHOENIX — Results in Arizona will first be known at 8 p.m. on Election Day and there’s a rough estimate about how many Maricopa County ballots will be released at that time.

County Recorder Stephen Richer said Monday that about 55% of the total vote in Arizona’s most populous county will be known on the first drop. Of those, 75% of all early ballots received will have been released.

Richer said that 2.2 million ballots have been processed and sent for tabulation as of Monday. Maricopa County has a two-page ballot for the first time since 2006, so the ballots of about 1.1 million voters have been sent for tabulation.

Maricopa County has about 2.6 million registered voters.

“We are around the clock ballot processing,” Richer said at a press conference.

More help in processing Maricopa County ballots

On Wednesday, the county expects to release results from about 500,000 additional ballots.

That’s in part because the county has been taking extra steps this election year to speed up the process, such as having employees take on extra shifts.

More than 150 “boards” — which refers to two-person, bipartisan team of workers — are on hand to move along the ballot process. That’s twice as many boards as Arizona’s election officials have used for the past two elections.

Even with the extra help, elections officials have urged people to vote early, or make a plan if they opt to cast their ballots in person on Election Day.

Richer said 180,000 people have voted early in person so far. Nearly 250 voting centers across the county are open as of Monday.

All ballots must be processed and signature verified before tabulation.

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