AZ Medical Marijuana Vote in Closest Split

(Update: It's down to just 724 votes behind, as of Friday afternoon, and I was mistaken before, counting goes on till Tuesday. Click here for more info.)

Drug policy reformers hoping for Arizona's medical marijuana initiative to pull out one statewide victory for us this year have had an agonizing wait. As election night drew on till morning, Prop 203 was behind with 49.74% voting for it vs. 50.26% against -- about 7,000 votes -- but with three to four hundred thousand late mail-in and provisional ballots remaining to be counted. Since that time, Prop 203's totals have gone up and down, but not getting closer than 2,000 behind. As the number of uncounted ballots remaining shrunk, the odds of the initiative being able to make up the difference by the end of them likewise shrunk.

Something unexpected happened over the last two days, though. As of close-of-business Phoenix time Wednesday, Prop 203 was behind by about 3,000 votes. But last night I noticed the difference had shrunk by more than 50%, down to 1,436, the closest split yet. If there is some dynamic at work that's skewed the final ballots in a certain way -- more provisional ballots being Democrats, for example (just a speculation, but they do appear to have let most of the provisional ballots till last), then that possibility could have some likelihood. Regardless, if tonight's batch splits the same way for Prop 203 as last night's does, it could actually win despite how unlikely that has seemed the last several days.

One more day -- keep the hope alive -- and the election alive too, it seems.