* From a press release…

Volunteers and attorneys from both parties continue to closely monitor the tallying of remaining ballots in the city of Chicago today. Today’s tally makes the race for Illinois State Treasurer one of the closest statewide general elections in state history.

In Chicago today, Tom Cross gained 2,043 votes from mail-in ballots, compared to 9,446 for Democrat Mike Frerichs and 520 for Libertarian candidate Matthew Skopek, consistent with previous citywide returns.

Vote totals have seesawed since election night, but they have trended in Frerichs’ favor. Mail-in ballots counted in collar counties like McHenry and DuPage County saw big net gains for Cross. However Cross’s gains in the collar counties have been offset by vote tallies from Rockford and suburban Cook communities where Frerichs has fared well.

Based on unofficial totals from Capitolfax, The Frerichs campaign projects Tom Cross’s lead has now shrunk to fewer than 1,800 votes. Frerichs cautions the contest remains far from over, with tens of thousands of ballots still to be counted in counties across Illinois through November 18th.

The approximate 1,800 vote difference out of nearly 3.5 million votes cast in the state treasurer’s race makes it one of the closest statewide general elections not only in Illinois history, but U.S. history, with a margin of only .05%, or one in 2000 voters.

*** UPDATE 1 *** Scott Kennedy of Illinois Election Data fame plugged in the new Chicago numbers and has Cross’ lead down to just 646 votes.

…Adding… Kennedy explains…

The City of Chicago added just shy of 14,000 votes to their already reported totals and Frerichs netted a little more than 8,500 of them. The difference is now down to a very slim lead for Tom Cross of 646 votes.

*** UPDATE 2 *** The Cross campaign says the city numbers are strange. Both sides, they say, got the same report from Chicago about what was counted today, which is why both initially believed the margin was in the 1800 range. “I don’t know what else that could be,” a Cross guy said. “We closed out the place. We got the reports for the night.”

…Adding… To be very clear here, the discrepancy isn’t in Kennedy’s counting, it’s in Chicago’s report tonight. They reported more votes than they initially revealed to the two sides.

From Kennedy…

All weekend these were the numbers publicly listed on the City of Chicago Board of Elections website:

Frerichs: 466,477
Cross: 118,356
Skopek: 22,972

These are the numbers now publicly on their website now:

Frerichs: 477,439
Cross: 120,750
Skopek: 23,550

*** UPDATE 3 *** So, after Chicago released its last report on Thursday afternoon, it recounted 69 of what it called “obvious discrepancy precincts.” The totals just didn’t look right, so they reran them through the machine. It seems likely that those 69 precincts were included in tonight’s numbers.