The race for Arizona’s second congressional district seat remains too close to call, between Republican Martha McSally and incumbent Democrat Ron Barber. McSally was leading by 341 votes Monday morning.
County recorders are now tabulating provisional ballots, each of which can be challenged on whether the voter has the right to cast a ballot.
Pollster Mike O’Neil says that means the race could take a month to decide.
“I’ve been doing modeling on that one based on incremental assumptions and the net result ends up almost in two-digit margins, which means it’s too close to call,”
O’Neil said.
O’Neil says the votes are now being counted by hand and he says the decision on whether the ballot will count could come down to whether the signatures between the ballot and the voter registration card are a match.
County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez says the last of 9,335 validated provisional ballots will be sent to county elections staff Monday morning. Rodriguez says her staff finished the validations Sunday evening.
It's estimated that about two-thirds of those ballots are in the 2nd District. Elections officials plan to count those votes Monday.
Attorneys representing both candidates are monitoring the count. Rodriguez rejected a demand from McSally's campaign to stop verifying some provisional ballots on Sunday.
Dennis Lambert and the Associated Press contributed to this report.