Bumbling Chicago election officials 'find' 10,000 missing ballots in Democratic ... trends now

The Chicago Board of Elections says it made a mistake when tabulating the results for the Democratic primary race for Cook County state's attorney.

The race to lead the nation's second-largest prosecutor's office could not be tighter with just 4,800 votes separating the candidates following a heated primary campaign in the Chicago area.

At last count, Eileen O'Neill Burke is leading Clayton Harris III by 4,7771 votes. O'Neill Burke has 255,010 votes while Harris has 250,239 votes.

But the election board has said it is looking to add an additional 10,000 votes to the total counts after some vote-by-mail ballots were 'mistakenly left out'.

'I traded speed for accuracy in reporting out numbers this week as quickly as I could. I truly regret this error on my part and for the confusion that it has caused the voters of Chicago. I will share updated numbers only when they are accurate and verified,' Chicago Board of Elections Public Information Officer Max Bever said in a statement.

'There will be additional results coming in, both large and small, through the next week,' Bever said on Sunday afternoon. 'We continue to ask for voters' patience as the process plays out, and by law all the votes are counted.' 

The vote-by-mail ballots were delivered on Monday, March 18. It is not clear why they were not included during the original count. 

Harris has slowly narrowed the gap on Burke, as election officials in Chicago and suburban Cook County counted ballots. 

Bever continued: 'I made an error that should have been included in the 'received by Election Day' numbers.

O'Neill Burke is a former appellate judge with a large campaign war chest, while Harris is a professor and attorney who has held government posts. 

Neither candidate has conceded or declared victory, nor has the Associated Press called the race. 

The winner of the

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