Update: More than 310,000 ballots left to count in Arizona
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via Pima County elections webcamPima County elections workers tally ballots on Thursday morning.
More than 313,000 early and provisional ballots remain to be counted in Arizona, with 41,000 left to be tallied in Pima County alone, officials said Thursday morning. Several close races hang in the balance, from the CD 2 contest between Ron Barber and Martha McSally, to the LD 9 House race that has just 8 votes separating Ethan Orr and Randy Friese.
Most of the uncounted ballots — 210,000 of them — are in Maricopa County. Pinal County has 27,979 yet to count, while in Pima County, there are 41,155 ballots left to tabulate.
Not all ballots will be valid. The reason for the delayed count is the process of reviewing early ballots returned on Election Day, to ensure that duplicate ballots were not cast by individual voters, and the verification of provisional ballots.
Voters can drop mail-in ballots at polling places on Election Day, so officials review the voter rolls to ensure that voters do not vote more multiple times. Otherwise, a voter could drop a mail-in ballot and vote in person at the polls.
Election results: Updated live
Provisional ballots are cast by voters who do not have the proper ID, who are not listed on the rolls of the polling place they are casting a ballot at, and for other reasons. For voters who lacked proper ID, they have until 5 p.m. next Wednesday to provide proof of their identity at the County Recorder's Office, in order for their vote to be counted.
In Pima County, there are 31,055 early ballots that must be counted, including those ready to count, being processed, or being duplicated because of ballot defects.
There are about 5,000 Pima ballots that must be duplicated prior to counting because they were damaged, including torn and stained ballots, said county spokesman Mark Evans.
The Recorder's Office is working to check about 10,100 provisional ballots, Evans said.
About 14,000 ballots will be counted Thursday, Evans said.
Officials said an updated count will be released around 6 p.m. Thursday, pushing back from an earlier announcement that new results would be released at 4:30 p.m.
Other counties each had between 3,000 and 7,000 ballots remaining to review and count, according to data from the Secretary of State's Office.
That data showed that Pima had 34,248 ballots to tabulate, while county officials said the total number is about 41,155, up from a total released earlier Thursday of 37,500.
"Both the Elections Department and Recorder's Office will work through the weekend to complete the count," Evans said.
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