Inside the ballot counting process in Maricopa County

Today marks two weeks until Election Day. Maricopa County is already processing hundreds of thousands of early ballots. Fox 10's Andrew Christensen is live at the County Tabulation and Election Center with how that all works. Andrew. Yeah, so the really big question is what happens to your ballot once you put it in the mailbox or a ballot box? Well, before it gets here, it goes to a vendor. They scan your signature. Then it goes to the Maricopa County Recorder's Office. That's where they verify the signature for accuracy. And then it gets right over here to the election, excuse me, the elections department. So once signatures are confirmed, election workers remove the ballots from their envelopes and feed them through tabulation machines. The recorder's office reports over 310,000 people have already voted early as of yesterday. Today, that election department says it is ready to tabulate more than 225,000 of those ballots. Officials say transparency is critical to building public trust throughout the county. Maricopa County, we really tried to lean into transparency because we want people to have confidence when they cast their ballot. We live stream our ballot tabulation center every day, all day, actually all year long. So people can tune in at any point and watch it. The Elections Department also runs regular audits at multiple stages to guarantee an exact count. They also use tamper-proof seals and require election workers to sign off on all ballot deliveries. Officials tell me they also have strict safeguards in place to prevent double voting and to ensure only eligible citizens cast a ballot. You are going to need to know two dates if you are going to want to vote by mail. This Friday is the last day to request a ballot by mail. October 27th is when officials say that is the last day that you can mail in your ballot. Reporting in downtown Phoenix, Andrew Christensen, Fox 10 News.