160,000 Pima ballots left to count, as races remain tight

About 160,000 ballots remain to be counted in Pima County on Wednesday, among about half a million still to tally across Arizona, as many races remain too close to call.

The Pima County Recorder's Office had about 106,000 early ballots to verify and send to the Elections Department for counting, while that agency had about 54,000 more ballots that haven't yet been added to the vote totals.

The two offices expect to process about 15-20,000 ballots per day, and should be finish by Nov. 14 or 15, said County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly.

"Our goal would be to turn over 20,000 per day — that's (speaking) optimistically," she said. "15,000 per day is more realistic."

The county will post updated results at 6 p.m. daily, said Elections Director Constance Hargrove.

"We'll probably work a little later tonight. By 7 p.m., we plan to post what we have from the early ballots," she told reporters Wednesday afternoon.

Officials have completed counting the ballots cast in person on Election Day, Hargrove said.

The ballots left to be counted are almost all early ballots — dropped off in person or received via the mail — that arrived after last Friday. About 44,000 of them are early ballots that were dropped off at vote centers on Tuesday, Cázares-Kelly said.

"We've been crunching numbers all day, trying to figure out what we've got," she said.

The early ballots must each have the signature on the ballot envelope verified by the Recorder's Office, before being sent to be counted by the Elections Department. The "late early" ballots must also be checked to ensure that the voter didn't cast a ballot in person at a vote center on Tuesday.

"I think we had a really tremendous cycle," Cázares-Kelly said. “We saw really enthusiastic, determined, empowered voters who were excited to participate in our democracy."

"We didn’t have any trouble. You know, nothing like our other counties in the state experienced," she said.

The election demonstrated the "efficacy of the vote center model," the recorder said, with a "wonderful reduction in the number of provisional ballots."

In addition to about 2,000 provisionals to review, there are about 350 ballots from overseas voters that came in at the last minute, and 750 "problem ballots," such as those missing signatures, and "where we have questions for the voter and we are reaching out," she said.

Voters have until Nov. 16 to "cure" any problems with their ballots, by state law, she said. "No matter what, by statute, we have to allow people the opportunity."

500k ballots left to count

Democrats led many major races across Arizona on Tuesday night as the first vote counts were released. But Republican turnout was strong on Election Day, and many races trended their way as more votes were tallied. There are about 500,000 additional ballots left to be counted across the state.

About 44,000 early ballots received prior to Election Day have yet to be tabulated in Pima County.

Across the state, even more ballots remain to be tallied — about half a million, including some 428,000 ballots in Maricopa County.

Democrats led many major races across Arizona on Tuesday night as the first vote counts were released. Up early were Sen. Mark Kelly, gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs and U.S. House candidate Kirsten Engel.

Most of the Democrats were up by a dozen points early, while Kelly led GOP candidate Blake Masters by about 17 points.

But the lead for Hobbs dwindled, and Engel began trailing by a couple of thousand votes, with both races essentially tied as counting continued into the night and Wednesday morning.

Even so, races are still too close to call, with Republicans still banking on yet-to-be-counted ballots cast on Tuesday to make up the difference, and Kelly didn't claim victory Tuesday night.

Speaking around 11:30 p.m., after hours of incremental updates in the votes counted around Arizona, Mark Kelly stopped short of claiming a win.

Thanking supporters at the Rialto Theatre for their hard work, Kelly quoted the late U.S. Sen. John McCain in saying "we have so much more in common than we disagree about."

"Now there is there is no country in the world better at solving big problems in the United States of America. We put people on the moon in the 1960s. And we’re about to do it again, by the way. And then we’ll go on to Mars. We are capable of extraordinary things when we come together and just put our minds to it. Yeah, that’s who we are. We create, we innovate. We build. That’s what we’re capable of when our leaders focus on unity rather than division," Kelly said.

"I’ll tell you what, I’m feeling confident tonight. At the same time, it doesn’t look like we’re gonna have the final results for a little while," Kelly said.

Since, Kelly's lead has dropped to about 5 points.

Juan Ciscomani, facing Engel in the CD 6 congressional race, urged supporters at the El Conquistador resort to "keep the faith" as he trailed by about 11 points around 10 p.m.  "We're hopeful that we'll catch up and things will turn around."

Earlier, Engel told a small crowd of Democrats gathered at Hotel Congress that "we're fighting to renew the American Dream, and if given the chance, we will. It's up to the voters now. Let's just hope they make the right decision."

By 12:30 a.m., further updates in the vote count narrowed Engel's lead to just 5 points.

Former congressman Ron Barber, across the street at the Rialto Theatre for a rally for Sen. Mark Kelly, noted early in the evening that he lost his race by 167 votes and said, "Don't worry about close races; that's how it is in Arizona."

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, expected to coast to re-election, was leading GOP challenger Luis Pozzolo by a 2-1 margin

While most Arizona voters are early voters, those who hadn't yet cast their election ballots could do so in person Tuesday — with Pima County's new "vote center" model seeming to recover from the hiccups reported in the August primary. Long lines were reported at several locations around Tucson.

Polls closed at 7 p.m. The first release of election results came after 8 p.m., and included the early votes cast prior to Election Day.

Ballots cast at vote centers will begin to be counted Tuesday evening, while dropped early ballots that were off in person on Tuesday be counted in the coming days. In most elections, nearly all ballots are counted by the Friday after the election, but some provisional ballots can take longer to verify and be added to the count.

Voters were casting ballots to pick a new Arizona governor, determine the makeup of the Legislature and other top state offices, as well as pick the members of the U.S. House delegation and choose a U.S. senator. A number of propositions were also on the ballot, and local school board races rounded things out.

The most up-to-date vote totals are available at the Arizona Secretary of State's Office site:

Statewide results

Pima County results