Locals know it as “Election Month,” a weeks-long political extravaganza that begins in October and extends through mid-November as election workers slog through hundreds of thousands of early ballots tucked inside green and white envelopes.

In Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, the vote-counting unfolds inside a gargantuan downtown building resembling a warehouse. Security officers monitor who comes and goes, and workers wearing blue latex gloves furiously sort ballot envelopes while ’80s pop and ’90s hip-hop blares. A track recently in rotation: Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It.”

Nearby, through a maze of corridors and walls plastered with maps of the nation’s second-largest voting jurisdiction, a lobby that doesn’t usually see a lot of action is now the nerve center of American politics. Television crews relay news about a complicated vote-counting process from this newly-branded swing state to audiences around the world. So many reporters pack inside that there aren’t enough chairs. Some bring their own, others plop onto the floor.

The attention is unprecedented in this county, which in 2020 was central to attempts by Donald Trump and his supporters to overturn the former president’s loss. Anticipating a maelstrom during this years’ election, the county’s governing board and election officials worked for months to try to set the public’s expectations for how the November results would roll out.