The Grand Canyon State saw a record number of ballots cast in the Nov. 2 general election, but it may be a week or more before it’s clear what percentage of eligible voters turned out.

As of late Nov. 3, the last time the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office updated its figures before the Arizona Capitol Times deadline, 1,674,752 ballots had been counted. As has been the case for much of Arizona’s history as a fast-growing state, that was a record number for a presidential election year, topping the 1,559,520 ballots cast in 2000.

And the number will rise. Karen Osborne, elections director for Maricopa County, said Nov. 4 that the state’s most populous county still had 190,000 early ballots to count and that an additional 50,000 provisional ballots likely will turn out to be legal and countable.

With other counties still needing to tally early and provisional ballots, Ms. Osborne said, “I can guarantee you that 300,000 votes haven’t been counted yet.”

The 63.4 per cent turnout announced by the Secretary of State’s Office on Nov. 3 reflects only ballots cast at polling sites. Voter registration for the general election was 2,643,331, so for every 26,433 ballots added to the polling-place total, one percentage point will be added to the turnout.

The 2000 presidential election saw 71.8 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots. The record turnout as a percentage of eligible voters is 86.1 per cent in the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon presidential race. The percentage in presidential years has fluctuated since, ranging from 83.5 per cent in 1964, in which incumbent Lyndon Johnson defeated native son Barry Goldwater, to as low as 63.8 per cent in 1996, when incumbent Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole.

The number of Arizonans registered to vote in 2004 also was a record, no surprise considering Arizona’s rapid growth. Registration for the Nov. 2 general election was 2,643,331, versus 2,229,180 in 2002 (a year in which there was no presidential race) and 2,173,122 in 2000.

Secretary of State Jan Brewer said few problems with equipment were reported at polling sites, so voting proceeded smoothly, even though lines were long due to the larger number of voters. Some precincts reported waits of up to four hours, Mrs. Brewer said.

In Phoenix, a bomb threat was phoned to Longview Elementary School, the site of one polling station. Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said police found no bomb and later determined the call was a hoax by two male students hoping to get school closed for the day. Rather than waiting out the delay for an evacuation and search of the school, county election officials moved the polling station to a nearby church. —