Some 100,000 votes or more are still to be counted in the close race for Cook County state’s attorney, and it will likely be days before a winner is declared in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Eleven of the city's 1,291 precincts still have not reported their totals in the race between Eileen O’Neill Burke and Clayton Harris III after officials announced that they had added unofficial results from nine more precincts of the 20 that were not immediately available on election night. As of Wednesday afternoon, fewer than 10,000 votes separated Burke and Harris.
Election officials said there could be as many as 109,000 mail-in ballots still waiting to be counted from Chicago voters. In the suburbs, Cook County election officials say as many as 46,000 mail-in ballots could still remain. Those numbers represent voters' applications for mail ballots, so it's unknown how many ballots were actually completed and dropped in the mail. Most results from mail-in votes will likely be known by Friday, but election officials said votes could continue to trickle in for at least two weeks. Neither Burke nor Harris has declared victory nor conceded defeat. Burke, a retired appellate judge, told supporters she was hopeful, grateful and “cautiously optimistic.” Harris said, “We are within 9,500 votes of Eileen O’Neill Burke, and the margin between us has been consistently shrinking.” Burke took an early lead Tuesday night based on her strong showing the suburbs, where she ended up with an eight-point lead. As the night wore on, votes in the city chipped away at the gap between the candidates. Harris eventually took the lead in the city vote, with 51.19% to Burke’s 48.81%.