Republican Martha McSally, Democrat Ron Barber at AZPM debate Oct. 7, 2014.A final result in the 2nd Congressional District election between Ron Barber and Martha McSally won't be known before Monday, Pima County elections officials said.
Election workers were toiling through the weekend to complete processing of provisional ballots and those that needed duplication because off damage. The next counting of those ballots was scheduled for Monday, Elections Director Brad Nelson said.
The latest tally released Friday evening showed Republican challenger McSally with 509 votes more than Democratic incumbent Barber, a lead of 0.24 percent. In 2012, Barber won the first race between the two by a margin of 2,454 votes, or 0.84 percent, and it took 11 days to reach that conclusion.
Pima County officials said up to 13,000 ballots remained, and the count would continue through the weekend. In Cochise County, about 1,100 votes remained to be processed.
It was not known how many of the Pima County votes were in the 2nd Congressional District. The less populous western half of the county is in the 3rd Congressional District.
In 2012, Pima County voted for Barber by a 52.2-47.8 percent margin, and Cochise County voted for McSally by a 58.8-41.2 percent margin. Through Friday's results, McSally was running ahead of those margins in both counties.
Both Barber and McSally have declined interview requests since election night, saying they wanted to wait for the results to be final.
Barber Thursday sent an email fund-raising appeal to help pay for a recount, and the National Republican Congressional Committee sent a similar appeal on McSally's behalf Friday.
Any recount would be publicly funded and would occur only if the margin is less than 0.1 percent or fewer than 200 votes.
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