With a lead of more than 100 votes and a claim that only 60 of 259 remaining provisional ballots are qualified to be counted, Republican Rep. Jim Lembke of Lemay said he “can’t lose” election to the 1st District Missouri Senate seat.

At press time, Lembke held a 116-vote lead of more than 87,000 votes cast over former Democratic Rep. Joan Barry of Oakville.

The St. Louis city part of the 1st Senate District included 11 countable provisional ballots, according to Lembke. Barry received seven of those votes, and Lembke received four.

“They have gone through all of the county’s universe, which for our district was 259 ballots,” Lembke said. “And they have narrowed that universe down to 60. So my understanding is that they will be counted by Monday or Tuesday … So we should have some finality to this thing by Tuesday …

“Our (lead), unofficially right now, went from 119 to 116. So we really believe on the county ballots, they’ll break pretty much the way the county vote broke, where I won 52.5 (percent) to 47.5 (percent). Even if they break 50-50 … I’m still north of 100 votes … I can’t lose.”

But Barry believes that with such a close vote, it is too soon for Lembke to make any victory claims.

“… I think he’s kind of jumping the gun,” Barry said. “… There is a path to follow and let the election authorities finish their work. It’s still extremely close and we don’t have the provisionals in …”

County officials had until Tuesday, Nov. 18, to certify their election results, and Secretary of State Robin Carnahan has until Dec. 9 to certify results at the state level.

With this in mind, Barry said it would be premature for her to say that she had won or lost the election.

“At that point, if our option is to ask for a recount, then that would be the time to do that,” Barry said “… (Lembke) has a lawyer, and I have a lawyer and there’s a road to follow and we need to do that… I’m certainly going to follow this road that we need to follow and so far I’m picking up votes, so we’ll see how things go.”