PHOENIX - After Maricopa County submitted 80,000 more counted ballots to the state Friday at 5 p.m., Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema expanded her lead over Republican Martha McSally.
Before Maricopa County submitted its latest batch of counted ballots, Sinema led by 9,500 votes. Now, her lead is over 21,000.
According to Garrett Archer with the Secretary of State office, Yuma, Mohave, Coconino, Pinal and Santa Cruz counties all posted ballots to the state Friday afternoon as well.
As of 4:14 p.m., there were about 450,000 ballots left to be counted by the state.
There are about 266,000 ballots left to count in Maricopa County alone.
Sinema took her first lead since early Tuesday night on Thursday afternoon after Maricopa and Pima counties dropped ballots to the state.
After Maricopa County posted to the state at 5 p.m., Mohave and Yavapai counties submitted some ballots to the state as well.
Sinema's lead total is 20,203 votes as of 5:15 p.m.
The outstanding ballot total estimate for the entire state is now 362,000 ballots with 266,000 of those belonging to Maricopa County.
Earlier on Friday, Republicans and Democrats in the state settled on a lawsuit, which resulted in all county recorders having until Nov. 14 to cure, or verify, ballots without signatures or ballots with signatures that did not match signatures on file.
The lawsuit filed by a group of Arizona Republicans alleged the state's county recorders don't follow a uniform standard for allowing voters to address problems with their mail-in ballots, and that Maricopa and Pima counties improperly allow the fixes for up to five days after election day.
Now, all counties will follow a uniform standard.
Also on Friday, President Donald Trump tweeted about potential corruption in the state and even went so far as to suggest a new election between McSally and Sinema.
It's unclear as of now how many ballots we should expect counted this weekend, but counted ballots from Maricopa County are expected around 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
