Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Election 2009: What's Left To Count

Posted By on Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 3:02 PM

We spoke with Pima County Elections Director Brad Nelson, who tells us that there are probably still about 15,000 ballots left to count from yesterday's election.

But how many of those are city ballots is anyone's guess at this point.

According to the latest report: In Ward 6, Republican Steve Kozachik holds a 1,332-vote lead over Democratic incumbent Nina Trasoff, while in Ward 3, Democratic incumbent Karin Uhlich holds a 444-vote lead over Republican challenger Ben Buehler-Garcia.

Nelson's ballot breakdown:

Nelson has received roughly 5,700 early ballots from Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez that arrived on Monday and Tuesday but didn't get processed in time to be counted on Election Day.

Rodriguez has received roughly 5,500 ballots from Nelson that were dropped off at polling places on Election Day.

Rodriguez has an estimated 2,600 provisional ballots that require a closer check to ensure that the voter was eligible to cast a ballot.

Nelson has about 2,000 ballots that were somehow screwed up by the voter. (For example, a voter might have circled a name instead of filling out an oval or used a red pen that wouldn't be picked up by the scanning equipment. In those cases, the county duplicated the ballot and counts it.)

Nelson tells us that no counting of these ballots will begin until tomorrow.