Election officials to begin count of mail-in ballots as race for Cook County State's Attorney remains too close to call
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Election officials are expected to begin scanning and counting mail-in ballots Friday morning.
The race for Cook County State's Attorney remains too close to call as of Friday morning.
Poll watchers from both candidate's campaigns have been keeping a close eye on the process.
Elections officials say all 1,291 precincts in the city have now reported their election results.
An additional 2,552 votes were added to the unofficial count just Thursday.
At last check, 345,697 ballots were cast in Chicago - a 22.9% voter turnout citywide.
The city's election board has received 25,723 mail ballots since Tuesday, most of them through drop boxes at early voting sites. Any mail ballots postmarked by Tuesday will be counted if they arrive with the board by April 2.
Election workers spent Thursday checking and then double-checking the signatures on the mail-in votes the board has received so far.
As far as the State's Attorney's race for Cook County, Eileen O'Neill Burke is leading the race by just over 8,000 votes - or a roughly 1% advantage over Clayton Harris.
The initial vote-by-mail ballots will be going into ballot scanners Friday morning to be counted by elections officials.
Both the Harris and O'Neill Burke campaign will have poll watchers on hand to keep an eye on the process.
Board officials said voters need to be patient to find out final official results, as it could potentially be April 2 before that race is decided.
"It's very possible when races often are very close. We just saw that in municipal elections, too. There will be campaigns that want to see every single vote counted. And the Board of Elections? We do not officially call races until every vote is counted," Chicago Board of Election Commissioners spokesman Max Bever said.
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