Prop 203 Closes Gap -- But Isn't Quite There Yet; Latest Vote Count Shows Medical Marijuana Still in Running

Proposition 203 seems to be gaining an edge as officials continue to count votes.The ballot measure that would legalize medical marijuana in Arizona was about 6,500 votes behind as of last night.It's closing the gap: The difference now is only 3,870 votes...

By Ray Stern

November 4, 2010

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Proposition 203 seems to be gaining an edge as officials continue to count votes.

The ballot measure that would legalize medical marijuana in Arizona was about 6,500 votes behind as of last night.

It's closing the gap: The difference now is only 3,870 votes.

State and county officials will be counting the provisional ballots and early ballots dropped off Tuesday at the polls for a few days yet.

There are more than 300,000 uncounted votes left statewide, says a bulletin this evening from the Arizona Secretary of State's office. Of those, 225,000 are from Maricopa County and 30,000 are from Pima county. The rest come from other counties.

According to a separate news release from the Maricopa County election department this evening, the county has 234,000 votes left to count.

Yesterday, Maricopa and Pima had more than 320,000 votes to count. That means about 65,000 votes (plus, whatever was counted in the smaller counties) managed to erase about 3,000 "no" votes from the running tally.

If that trend keeps up, the "yes" votes will win out after another day or so of counting.

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.