NYT discovers a MAJOR error in its Arizona results, shifts ballots counted from 98% to 86%

Greg P. | 11:47 AM on November 04, 2020

The New York Times discovered a major error in its data for Arizona and has shifted the number of ballots counted from 98% to 86%:

An error was found in the data feed from Edison Research (used by @nytimes and other news organizations) for Arizona results — 86 percent of ballots have been counted, not 98 percent. NYT has not called the state for Biden, though he still leads. https://t.co/mPDkiKsExQ

— Patrick LaForge (@palafo) November 4, 2020

This may explain why the Trump campaign thinks they can still win the state:

This gives some credence to the Trump camp's argument in a call with reporters that it expects to pull ahead in Arizona, because most of the outstanding vote is in Trump-friendly territory.

— Jeff Dufour (@dcdufour) November 4, 2020

Is Arizona “back on the board”?

AZ back on the board. https://t.co/ftNo0HcELN

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) November 4, 2020

But it’s unclear right now what this exactly means. Fox News and AP, which called the race for Joe Biden, do not use this bad data source:

Fox and AP, which called Arizona for Biden, do not use Edison https://t.co/fj5pXlB8C6

— Elahe Izadi (@ElaheIzadi) November 4, 2020

CNN, who does use Edison, has not called the race:

Obligatory note that CNN, which is using the Edison Research data and is my employer, has not called the race in Arizona.

Just pointing out that the incomplete Edison Research data may not be too big a deal. We will see

— em steck (@emsteck) November 4, 2020