Two days after Tuesday's election, votes are still being counted statewide, and Arizona's biggest race is still too close to call.
The latest numbers on Arizona's Secretary of State website show Kyrsten Sinema has a lead of a little more than 9,000 votes over Martha McSally as of 7 p.m. on Thursday.
As of Thursday at 5 p.m., about 345,000 more votes still need to be counted, according to Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes.
Election officials said about 150,000 early ballots that the elections department received before Nov. 6 must be tabulated.
Part of the reason counting votes takes so long is that his office enters some data into the computer system manually.
Four local Republican parties requested to immediately stop counting ballots when they filed a lawsuit challenging the way the county is handling mail-in ballots pending signature verifications. However, a superior court judge denied that request.
A hearing for the GOP challenge on mail-in ballot signatures is set for Friday at 2 p.m.