Congressman Ron Barber has closed some of the gap with GOP challenger Martha McSally after Pima County election officials ran a batch of early ballots through the machine. Barber trailed by 1,312 votes this morning; he now trails by 426, according to the Secretary of State’s website.
Here’s a breakdown of the early ballots left to count. If we had to guess, we’d say that the ballots counted this afternoon were the batch of 13,500 that were ready to go.
That would leave about 40,900 early ballots left to count, along with the 26,000 provisional ballots.
UPDATED: Pima County Elections Director Brad Nelson tells us the batch of ballots run this afternoon was indeed the roughly 13,500 that he told us about earlier in the day. Coming up Thursday afternoon at 1 p.m.: A new batch of 8,000 early votes.
This article appears in Nov 8-14, 2012.
Its hard to believe that its 2012, well into the digital age, and this stone age vote counting still exists. And its not just here. In his victory speech, Obama made a quick remark about improving voting in this country. About time. Are quick, honest, accurate counts too much to ask.
Hey, maybe they can find a batch of pro-Barber ballots in the trunk of a car like they did in the Minnesota Senate race 2 years ago.
Its over he lost
It’s not over and he didn’t lose. Those ballots will push Barber past McSally. It’s all about demographics. Same thing that happened with the late, not-so-great Jesse Kelly.
I showed up at the polling place as directed by my yellow card mailed to my house. I brought my Voter ID card, showing my address, name and my voting location. When I checked in I again learned that my name was not on the rolls. This has happened every year for the last four years and no matter what I do it continues to happen.
Let them count the votes and TELL US who won.. instead of us telling each other.. I voted against Barber , early, that dont mean he lost.. Lets give the elections folks the time to do their job..
Please remember, Pima county and Tucson is mostly Democrat controlled. Heaven for bid that a Republican should win anything!!!!!
I think it’s time for a recount by people other then the counter we have now.
Yep they’ll keep counting till Barber wins whether he gets the true votes or not.
If Barber weren’t War-Monger-Lite and no appreciable difference from the cartoon McSalley (who could be anything to anyone since she said NOTHING), the Thousands of folks in this town who don’t believe the hype, who know the TRUTH about the War Machine being “good for the economy” (it ISN’T) or who would rather not have F35s blasting through the air above Tucson day and night 4 times as loud as the loudest jets now blowing holes in our quiet Sunday Mornings…
Might have voted for him…
And this wouldn’t have been that close…
How does a “Democrat” lose in a now democrat leaning district — by trying to be a faux-republican!
Early ballots benefited Barber because the Democrats worked hard to crank them out at a higher rate than the Republicans. It takes so long to count them because lots of people drop them off at the polling place on election day, and they have to be processed by humans.
Messy, but essential. Early ballots are the least likely to be monkeyed with or thrown out. Only a fool would trust their vote to an electronic machine with no paper trail (as many jurisdictions have done)., especially when the major voting technology companies are controlled by right-wing Republican criminals (See Harper’s magazine cover story this month, or any number of election integrity web sites.)
You could institute a rule that early ballots really do have to be EARLY, but then that wouldn’t exactly be fair, to give those people fewer days within which to cast their vote than other voters.
Provisional ballots usually favor Democrats, too, because they are disproportionately cast by young people, poor people, and people of color–all solidly Democratic demographics. In fact, provisionals are often thrown out at a very high rate and are part of a disturbing nationwide trend of disenfranchising these demographics, often by design of venal Republican elections officials.
It is quite possible, and I’d say likely, that Barber will eventually win this race.
Any updates on this today? If someone voted in person at the recorder’s office during early voting in October, is their ballot just now being counted? Or were those already counted and reflected in results?