Official results for D.A. race may be 2 weeks away

jaime esparza tells abc-7 he is ready for a runoff election. in order to avoid a runoff, he needs 50 percent of the vote plus 1! his opponents are yvonne rosales and leonard morales. these are final numbers from el paso and hudspeth counties, and partials from culberson county. right now, esparza is 47 votes short of being able to avoid that runoff with rosales. the culberson county courthouse was closed today for texas independence day. esparza says he’s proud of his record and dismissed his opponent’s claims that he has not been able to solve el paso’s d-w-i problem: abc-7’s jerry najera spoke with both esparaza and rosales today. he is live with the story … rick estela when we spoke to the county elections administrator lisa wise — the first thing she said was that it is just too close to make a final call right now. this afternoon both candidates told me they are ready for the run-off if it comes down to it. “good thing was the turnout was a lot higher that we expected” elections administrator lisa wise says the higher than usual voter turn out was good for the elections. the tight race between esparza and rosales showed voters are interested in the possibility of a new da. but there are still a few things to cover right now the elections office is still waiting to process 3 to 4 hundred provisional ballots a provisional ballot is used to record a vote when there are questions about a voter’s eligibility. a provisional ballot would be cast when: a voter fails to show an id or their name is not on the poll list. the voter can still vote but the elections office has to investigate and prove the voter is eligible. the elections office has until march 7th to do that. “i think every tim there’s three people in the race it’s hard to avoid a runoff” curren district attorney jaime esparza tells abc-7 he’s ready for a run-off and is counting on his 24- years of experience abc-7 he’s ready for a run-off and is counting on his 24- years of experience to keep him ahead. “since the beginning we have been innovative and we’ve made changes so that we were with the criminal justice system as it moved and to make sure we grew and changed with the community you will continue to see that” “i wa re-engergized with the results we saw last night” opponent yvonne rosales also says she’s confident with the support she got the support she got and although esparza has been touting his experience throughout the race rosales tells me she’s not new to the game “the fact is that did start out as a assistant district attorney straight out of law school i worked there for several years and managed all sorts of cases we were there every week wether it was a felony or a misdemeanor so i have that there every week wether it was a felony or a misdemeanor so i have that borad range of experience” and there’s more even after the county elections office validates all the provisional ballots march 7th those votes still need to go to their repective parties locally for an audit and then after that those numbers get audited on a state level so we might not see the final results until march 14th 2 weeks for now. two other races are headed for a runoff. maria ramirez and gina palafox will