Vote gap in Cook County State's Attorney Democratic primary race continues to narrow
CHICAGO (CBS) – The Democratic primary in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office race remained too close to call nearly a week after Election Day.
Eileen O'Neil Burke held a narrow lead over Clayton Harris, just about 1,600 votes, as of Monday.
As of shortly before 5 p.m. on Monday, Burke's vote count stood at 261,885 (50.2%), while Harris had earned 260,242 (49.8%).
The gap shrunk over the weekend after the Chicago Board of Elections added about 10,000 votes to the ballot count after they were mistakenly left out. About 2,500 mail-in ballots were counted on Monday on top of the 23,000 counted over the weekend.
Board spokesperson Max Bever said the apparent human error was of his own making when he mistakenly left off some vote-by-mail ballots on his initial count. He issued an apology over the weekend and assured that the ballots were under lock and key and had been part of a trove of mail-in ballots received ahead of Election Day.
After acknowledging the flub, ballot counting and ballot signature verification moved forward with poll watchers for both campaigns on site. The big question was how many ballots were left to count after Monday.
Per state law, all late-arriving but properly postmarked ballots must be counted. The deadline to count them is April 2. Officials said the exact number of those ballots was unclear.
"Many do trickle in from our military and our overseas voters but we also do have provisional ballots," Bever said. "And we also have nursing home ballots too, and ultimately, that will be under the watch of campaigns and attorneys."
Both campaigns told CBS 2 they will continue to monitor the counting process.