Why did so many Arizona voters hold on to their mail-in ballots until the last day?

One didn’t trust the system enough to part with her ballot early. Another dropped off his ballot on Election Day because he was simply too busy to mail it before.

Their ballots were among the approximately 290,000 dropped off at polling locations on Election Day. Officials said on Thursday that was an unprecedented number in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous region.

And the contents of those envelopes contain the future of Arizona’s political leadership.

In 2020, the ballots dropped off on Election Day tilted heavily Republican, reversing what had been leads for Democratic candidates in several state and county races.

But in 2018, that batch of ballots tilted Democratic, lifting Kyrsten Sinema to the U.S. Senate and three Democrats to statewide offices. Among those was Katie Hobbs, who was elected Secretary of State that year.

This year, Hobbs found herself holding on to a slim lead Thursday, her fate again resting with those dropped-off mail-in ballots.

While it is legal for voters to drop off their early ballots on Election Day, doing so delays finalizing the eventual results. The arduous process of verifying the votes and preparing them for counting adds another layer: making sure a voter who dropped off an early ballot didn't also vote in person.

And the delays in releasing the final results try the public's patience and give oxygen to conspiracy theories.

Election Day coverage: Live voting updates | Arizona election results

What to do? The advice is out there

On Wednesday night, the chief operating officer of the influential conservative activist group Turning Point Action suggested that Maricopa County was selectively releasing results favorable to Hobbs as an attempt to embarrass Lake, who had predicted victory on Tucker Carlson's program on Fox News.

Some people were also comparing the process to a seemingly speedier count in Florida. At a news conference on Thursday, Bill Gates, the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, said he has heard the comparisons to Florida, which had already completed tallying most of its ballots. He said one key difference is that Florida does not allow voters to drop off ballots on Election Day.

"They don't allow it at all," Gates said. "We do."

Florida was not technically finished. A state website showed it was still counting provisional ballots. And, Gates said, because that state's races weren't close, people across the country aren't waiting for new results.

Amid the complaints, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer suggested Wednesday on Twitter that maybe it was time to change election procedure.

“(W)e will likely want to have a policy conversation about which we value more,” Richer wrote. “Convenience of dropping off Early Ballot on Election Day (or) higher percentage of returns with(in) 24 hours of Election Night.”

In the days before Election Day, Richer was telling his followers on Twitter that ballots dropped off before Sunday would be part of the tally released on Election Day. Otherwise, the ballot would be counted in subsequent days.

That was as much of an explicit plea as Richer made, still leaving it to voters.

Kelli Ward, the head of the Arizona Republican Party, was more pointed on her Twitter feed. She encouraged followers to drop off their ballot by the Friday before Election Day. "Your ballot WILL NOT be counted for DAYS if you drop it off on (Election Day,)" she wrote, adding the capital letters for emphasis.

A thread on the social media site Reddit on Thursday opened with someone apologizing for dropping of their ballots on Election Day, adding to the delay.

In the replies, others wrote about why they did so. One user said it was "pure procrastination." Another said they wished to avoid the armed patrols that, for a few days, were monitoring ballot drop boxes.

One user, in jest, thanked the person who admitted dropping their ballot off Tuesday. "Honestly, I'm just glad to have someone to blame, so thanks for exercising your franchise in a way that lets me do that."

For subscribers: Hostile takeover: Turning Point USA and the remaking of Arizona's Republican Party

The Republic interviewed two voters who dropped their ballots off on Election Day. While both voted for Republican candidates, two does not portend a trend or a pattern.

Mary Ann Diezic of Mesa had in past years sent her ballot in by mail. But in this cycle, she feared her ballot wouldn’t be counted if dropped off early. She didn’t exactly say why, but mentioned unspecified “controversies” about ballot handling.

Diezic also said she mainly received news from conservative sources like Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk, who had warned voters this cycle to cast ballots in person.

“I wanted it to be there that day,” she said. “I wanted to make sure.”

She also knew Democrats had a newfound propensity for voting early, and she wanted her ballot to be part of the Election Day results that would turn the tide for her favored candidates.

“I wanted to be part of that red wave,” she said.

As it happened, though, her ballot was not counted on Election Day. Officials needed to verify that the signature on the envelope matched her registration record and that she only cast one ballot. Processing ballots delivered to polling places on Tuesday didn’t start until Wednesday and would take through at least the end of the week, officials said.

When an early ballot turns late

Usually, political prognosticators have been able to discern the contents of the outstanding votes by tracking trends.

In Arizona, over the last few election cycles, the trends have been this: Democrats vote early; Republicans vote on Election Day.

But it’s not clear what to make of these voters who held on to their early ballot until the last possible day.

Perhaps it was traditional Republicans torn over whether to support the Trump-endorsed slate of candidates their party nominated.

Perhaps it was independents looking to be swayed by candidates’ closing arguments, commercials or mailers.

Or perhaps it was a ballot left on the kitchen counter too long, perpetually forgotten until the deadline arrived.

That was the case for Jack Steinmeyer. He chalked it up to “laziness,” though that hardly captures the time crunch he has been under in recent weeks.

His son has been in the hospital battling brain cancer. His wife has also been hospitalized due to complications from diabetes. Between visiting both and working, Steinmeyer said he didn’t have time.

“I’m on a treadmill,” he said.

Steinmeyer said he has usually voted by mail and appreciated the ability to take his time to research every question on the ballot. This year, though, he didn’t have time to look up every single candidate for the school board or explore whether judges should be retained. He said he left some questions on his ballot blank.

Steinmeyer said he thought about who to vote for once his early ballot arrived.

He was already leaning toward Lake because he had met her during previous election cycles. Steinmeyer worked at the Phoenix Convention Center and helped television stations broadcast election results from there. Lake, he said, was “always a gracious person to me.”

Steinmeyer also voted for Republican Blake Masters for the U.S. Senate, even though he wasn’t thrilled with video of Masters' comments that made it into television commercials.

“I didn’t like some of the comments Blake made,” Steinmeyer said. “but I went ahead and voted for him.” Steinmeyer figured some of the comments he found objectionable were taken out of context.

Steinmeyer had wanted to vote in person, but found the line too long when polls first opened.

He decided to go home and grab his already-filled-out ballot and take it with him on his lunch break. Faced with another line, he went into the polling place and dropped it off.

Steinmeyer said he only faced a time crunch. He would have trusted dropping his ballot off at a drop box before Election Day had he found the time to do so.

It's all legal, but it's frustrating for many

This particular type of ballot is hard to easily describe without getting caught up in a verbal maze.

Early ballots are mailed to a voter and, for maximum efficiency, are intended to be returned early. Those that arrive days ahead of Election Day are processed and tabulated, though officials don’t release the results until 8 p.m. on Election Day.

But under state statute, voters are free to hold on to their early ballots until the polls close on Election Day.

Officials must then not only verify that the ballot belonged to the voter who signed it, but must also guard against someone voting twice: casting a vote in person and also submitting an early ballot on Election Day. If someone has voted in person, officials invalidate their early ballot.

And while this is all within voters’ rights, elections officials know that those who do this delay the final results. Counting those ballots simply takes more time. And it is hard to keep pleading with the public for patience.

Count Diezic among those frustrated at the pace of getting final results.

She didn’t think the method of dropping off her ballot was convenient. She waited in line for 90 minutes along with those there to cast an in-person ballot. It wasn’t until she reached the polling place that she learned she could have jumped the line and simply dropped off her ballot.

On top of that, Diezic was left waiting until possibly the weekend to find out who won Tuesday’s election.

Diezic said it wasn’t like this “back in the '80s.”

A reporter noted to her that back in the '80s, Arizona didn’t allow no-excuse early voting.

She agreed, and after a conversation, acknowledged that her particular method of voting was the cause of the delay, a delay that would have been partly alleviated if she'd handed her early ballot to poll workers to spoil and then voted in person.

“I guess,” she said, “I should have filled out a ballot then.”

Republic reporter Stephanie Innes contributed to this article.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona election results delayed because people held mail-in ballots