Arizona Proposition 123 Votes Still Being Counted

By Katherine Fritcke, Casey Kuhn
Published: Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - 2:30pm
Updated: Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - 2:35pm
(Photo by Matthew Casey - KJZZ)
A Proposition 123 sign near a polling location near 32nd Avenue and Camelback Road.

The ballots for Proposition 123 are still being counted Wednesday. Early and provisional ballots are the last to be tallied in a very close race.

Counties are still tallying ballots, and Maricopa County has 76,000  ballots left to process and count, not including early and provisional.

The measure backed by Gov. Doug Ducey would put $3.5 billion into Arizona's K-12 school system over 10 years using the state’s general fund and money from the state land trust.

Elizabeth Bartholomew with Maricopa County’s Recorder’s Office doesn’t expect to see the final numbers anytime soon.

“Tabulating 76,000 ballots that’s kind of an all-day deal. So we might have some rough numbers tomorrow night, however, we may have to keep processing Friday morning,” said Bartholomew.

Matt Roberts with the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office said it might be another day before the official results are in.

“Obviously election officials, first and foremost, want to count every ballot that should be counted and include that in the final results. And because the number of outstanding ballots, which we’ve roughly estimated at about 100,000," said Roberts.

As of Wednesday afternoon, votes in favor of passing the proposition are holding a tiny lead with 50.5 percent of the vote. If the measures passes or fails by fewer than 200 votes in Maricopa County, elections officials will recount them.

Politics