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In Maricopa County, Arizona, an election official has downplayed the recent mishandling of approximately 2,288 ballot envelopes, which were inadvertently left behind by poll workers and only discovered several days following the election.
On Election Day, these ballots were mistakenly left in a ballot drop box, as reported by ABC 15, and the oversight wasn’t uncovered until three days later.
Upon discovery, the sealed bins were swiftly processed and counted within hours. According to AZ Central, around 30 of the envelopes displayed potential issues with signature verification. However, it remains uncertain how many of these issues were unresolved or left uncounted by the deadline.
Despite the mishap affecting a significant number of voters in Maricopa County, the county’s Deputy Elections Director, Jennifer Liewer, remained composed about the situation.
“Our elections are run by humans, our community members, and mistakes are bound to happen,” she stated, acknowledging the human element in the electoral process.
“Humans run our elections, our community members run our elections, and there are going to be mistakes that are made,” she shrugged.
“The important thing is that we have a process and a redundancy in our system to make sure that, when a mistake is made, we are able to quickly correct it,” Liewer added.
JUST IN Two boxes of uncounted ballots found days after Maricopa County’s election, per county elections officials. Number of uncounted ballots not disclosed. pic.twitter.com/QUZLrgvngg
— Brahm Resnik (@brahmresnik) November 7, 2025
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Arizona Republican Party Chair Gina Swoboda expressed a slightly higher level of curiosity about what may have happened to these sealed bins and why they were misplaced in the first place.
“Our legal counsel is sending an inquiry to determine how the ballot boxes were missed, verifying chain of custody is intact, and steps being taken to ensure this does not reoccur,” she said, according to AZ Central.
Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap, a Republican, said the incident was “deeply disappointing,” noting that “these ballots were forgotten and left unattended by poll workers employed by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.”
🚨MARICOPA COUNTY BOS FAIL
This is a chain of custody & process failure by the BOS — AGAIN!@ThomasGalvin insisted on @MaricopaVote running the ballot replacement facilities and drop boxes — even though the law says it’s the Recorder’s responsibility
They are notorious for… https://t.co/V2kLFsl3Wy
— Merissa Hamilton 🗳 ⛽ 🗽🔥 (@merissahamilton) November 7, 2025
Officials in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, have long struggled to get ballots counted in a timely fashion through several election cycles.
A report by the Economist last year, prior to the presidential election, cited Maricopa County as a primary culprit in a story on how “a culture of conspiracy haunts Arizona’s elections.”
“Since 2020, Arizona has been embroiled in controversy over the fairness of its elections,” they wrote.
Heap explains that this latest report on mishandled ballot envelopes “undermines voter confidence” in Maricopa, an understatement if ever there was one.
RedState will keep readers updated on this case as new developments warrant.
