A voter walks outside Mesa Community College in Mesa, Arizona, on Election Day.Go Nakamura/Reuters
In Arizona, a traditionally red state that has gone purple with recent Democratic gains, the divide on the ground remained stark.
Catherine DeGaytan, 60, and Phillip Chavez, 70, neighbours in the city of Mesa, visited a voting station together on Tuesday to cast their ballots for Kamala Harris. For them, it boiled down to two straightforward issues: reproductive rights and human decency. Arizona is one of 10 states with abortion rights on the ballot.
Ms. DeGaytan said she felt Ms. Harris was the only candidate who would preserve democracy and human rights. And, as someone whose mother had two abortions, including a backdoor procedure that nearly killed her, Ms. DeGaytan said the issue is close to her heart.
Mr. Chavez, who moved to Arizona from Mexico a half-century ago, said he is angered by Donald Trump’s demeaning treatment of women and what he described as an authoritarian governance style.
“We’re going to be like Russia, like North Korea and Venezuela,” he said. “If democracy dies, the whole world will crumble.”
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Meanwhile, Khristine Freeland cast her ballot for Donald Trump, saying the former president has already proven himself during his first term in office.
“Everything was just better,” she said, as she staffed a table displaying Trump stickers and literature outside a voting station in Mesa. “The country was running better. We didn’t have no wars. He runs it like a business, and shows what can be done when you don’t have a politician in place.”
While a first batch of results was expected Tuesday night, voters could wait the better part of two weeks for all ballots to be tabulated. Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, is home to about 2.6-million registered voters, or 60 per cent of all voters in the state. Added to that is the first two-page ballot since 2006, time-consuming signature verification requirements and added scrutiny of the whole process dating back to the last election.
In 2020, Mr. Trump falsely claimed that he won Arizona despite losing to Joe Biden by about 10,500 votes. Scores of his supporters protested outside of the Maricopa County tabulation and Election Center for days, believing the election was “stolen.” The Maricopa County Sherriff’s Office says it has invested “millions” of dollars in security since then, with drones and a chain-link fence being part of the visible measures this year.