US: High voter turnout in Arizona's GOP strongholds

ANKARA

As Election Day voting is underway in the US, a high voter turnout has been witnessed in state of Arizona's Republican strongholds on early Tuesday.

A half-hour after the polling stations opened at 7:00 a.m. local time (1600GMT), there were waits times up to 45 minutes in Glendale, Chandler, Gilbert and Surprise cities of the Maricopa County, the county’s Election Department's website estimated.

Additionally, Cochise County's election official Lisa Marra said late Monday that they receive many calls from voters who used mail-in vote, asking when their votes will be counted.

"We got dozens of calls today from people demanding to know when we counted their ballot. They know the date we received it. Wanted to know date and time counted," Marra said on Twitter.

"Because the President [Donald Trump] said if they didn't get that info to go vote again tomorrow. Horrible advice for voters. STOP," she added.

Since early September, Trump urged Americans to make sure their ballots were counted by asking the polling place when polls open and if not go and vote again.

Trump has regularly raised the specter of fraud in mail-in voting but has not backed up his claims up with evidence, according to most election experts.

According to data of the Arizona Secretary of State’s office, about 2.7 million cast their votes early by the mail-in vote in Arizona, which was secured by Trump in 2016. Polls indicate a tight race between Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden for the state's 11 electoral votes.