“If the voting indeed is quite honest, then why does it take so much longer to count fewer AZ than the more numerous FL votes?”
Don’t know. I know the voting stops overnight and suspect Arizona spends less in resources to the count. Also, I think - don’t know - that counties do the count in a single place and the transport of ballots securely apparently is a long process. It looks like signature verification and having everything done in front of both parties may be the issue, but I don’t know. Will probably see the guy again next week and will ask.
BTW - I don’t know how clean the ballot process is BEFORE they start the counting. I know I dropped my ballot off early with no ID check. A measure requiring some form of verification besides “signature” was voted down in 2022:
“Arizona Proposition 309, the Voter Identification Requirements for Mail-In Ballots and In-Person Voting Measure, was on the ballot in Arizona as a legislatively referred state statute on November 8, 2022.[1] The measure was defeated.
A “yes” vote supported making multiple changes to Arizona’s voter identification and mail-in ballot policies, including requiring dates of birth and voter identification numbers for mail-in ballots and eliminating the existing two-document alternative to photo ID for in-person voting.”
It lost by an 18,000 vote margin (0.75%).