2026 Election: Maricopa County counting ballots

Maricopa County is home to about 60% of our state's population and there are 254 polling sites across our county and all of the ballots head to the Maricopa County tabulation and election center. That's in downtown Phoenix and that's where we find Brian Webb this evening. Brian. Yeah, the building is a beehive of activity today, tonight and well into tomorrow to be sure. Like you said, all the ballots from all across the county will eventually pass through this building before we get the final results. Let's take a peek inside from about an hour ago. Election workers have been counting early ballots for days. Somewhere around a million have been counted so far. We expect the results of those early votes to be dumped around 8 p.m. sharp. Polls close an hour earlier, 7 p.m., and soon after that, all those polling sites, 254, will send their data here, and those ballots will be counted tonight and into tomorrow morning. There are 2.5 million registered voters in Maricopa County. 250,000, or about 10%, are expected to vote in person today. So it's a big undertaking, handled by good old-fashioned paper ballots, high-tech tabulation machines, and experienced election workers, along with election observers appointed by both political parties. So far, I'm told there are no reports of any problems, but it still will be a long night ahead. We'll post at 2 a.m. We'll post at 3 a.m. because all of our 254 vote centers have to break down all the equipment. They have bipartisan teams who bring those results on a memory card back to this facility, and then we upload those. So our election workers are literally working all night long. And again, I've asked several times if things are running smoothly today. Each time I got an emphatic yes. So they feel confident about a timely and accurate midterm election. More updates throughout the night. For now, live downtown Phoenix, I'm Brian Webb, Fox 10 News.