(Photo by Christina Estes-KJZZ)

A sample ballot.

The race for Arizona’s fifth congressional district is headed towards a recount.

Only nine votes, .01 of a percentage point, separate Arizona Senate President Andy Biggs and Christine Jones, a former GoDaddy executive.

That comes after thousands of mail-in and provisional ballots were counted over the weekend. Jones had seemed to be on her way to winning the GOP primary in early returns.

For a congressional race, the margin for an automatic recount is one-tenth of one percent of the total votes for the two top candidates, or 200 votes.
 
Elizabeth Bartholomew with the Maricopa County Recorder’s office said the recount begins after the Secretary of State canvasses the election next week.

“They will then need to go to the courts to get an order from them stating there will be a recount and then they will delegate the recount to the recorder’s office,” she said.

Bartholomew said they will go through the votes as quickly as possible, since the general election ballots needs to be sent out to military and overseas voters by the end of the month.

The district is heavily Republican and had been held by Matt Salmon who’s retiring.