Maricopa County, AZ
Maricopa County is the 4th most populous county in the United States and the most populous in Arizona, making up 62% (4.4mil) of the state population. Due to its size and varied demographics, the county is a politically significant center and statewide bellwether, voting for the statewide winning candidate in all elections except 1996. It has voted consistently Republican since 1952 but grew increasingly Democratic until 2020 where it flipped to Biden, then back to Trump in 2024.
Tidy Precinct Votes
This chart shows the president-senate differences for each party and precinct in Maricopa County. In 2024, the Arizona party tickets for presidential and senate candidates were (R) Donald Trump and Kari Lake and (D) Kamala Harris and Ruben Gallego.
What's weird
In only 7 of 936 precincts did Harris have more votes than Gallego, and only 2 of those where Trump had less than Lake. While Lake was a fairly unpopular candidate, what stands out is the sheer uniformity across all precincts.
For comparison, in 2020, Biden had 108 precincts where he outperformed the Senate candidate. In all 108, Trump had less votes than the Senate candidate.
Election Day Differences
Here are Maricopa County's Early Voting and Election Day votes by population and election year.
In 2012, Early Voting and Election Day trends are fairly similar.
In 2012 and somewhat 2020, you see a natural inverse relationship between candidates: the more votes one person gets in a precinct, the less the other person gets.
What's weird
In 2024, both candidates show a direct relationship: the more votes Harris gets, the more votes Trump gets and vice versa. Every time Harris gets more votes, Trump also tends to gets more votes over the Republican Senate candidate (i.e. drop-off).
Like in 2020, Maricopa County uses a different tabulator model across precincts for Election Day, and centralized machines in a single building for all other ballots.
Micro-Targets
Looking closer at inconsistent drop-off trends (with both Senate and House candidates) and changes in voter population between 2020 and 2024, we can more accurately determine which precincts may have been affected by vote manipulation.
What's weird
Maricopa County spans an area of 132 by 103 miles. The 10 most affected precincts are all clustered within an 8-mile radius (or 0.5% of Maricopa's total land area).
Prop 139
Prop 139 is the proposition to enshrine abortion access in the state constitution in Arizona. It passed statewide with a 61% approval rate. In Maricopa County, it got 1.22 million votes in favor and 737k opposed. It was consistently the most voted-upon measure on all of the ballots.
What's weird
Presidential vs. proposition voters. There were 25k more registered voters and 23k more voters turning out for the presidential race vs. the proposition measures. That is, there were 23k ballots that saw the presidential race but not Prop 139.
Excess votes for president correlates strongly with split-tickets (charts 1 & 2). There were 94k more votes for the presidential candidate than for Prop 139. In each precinct, the difference between the number of people who voted for Prop 139 and the presidential race lines up neatly with the people who voted Trump and Democratic down ballot.
For example, in the Acacia precinct: there were 1305 votes for president and 1242 votes for Prop 139, a difference of 63 votes. Looking at the president-senate difference for Democrats, Harris vs. Gallego is down 64 votes.
Excess votes for president correlate strongly with bullet ballots (chart 3). Across 936 precincts, ballots with just the presidential vote and missing the senate vote also appear to be missing the Prop 139 vote.
This all implies the excess ballots were added or altered in some way.
[Speculation] In swing states based on unofficial machine counts, not one had a margin within a recount threshold, automatic or requested. Excess ballots would help ensure the margins were always beyond automatic recount thresholds.
Comparisons to other states
Florida: Trump votes 6.1 million | Abortion measure 6.07 Million
Nevada: Trump votes 750k | Abortion measure 905k
Missouri: Trump votes 1.75 million | Abortion measure 1.45 million
Montana: Trump votes 351k | Abortion measure 344k