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State Attorney General Patricia Madrid gained on U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson by 323 votes but still needs a vast majority of the remaining 1,500 or so ballots to catch the Republican incumbent.

The boost for Madrid on Wednesday came from a block of nearly 1,000 Bernalillo County ballots cast on Election Day by people who requested to vote absentee but showed up at the polls anyway.

Of those ballots, Madrid won 616 votes to 293 for Wilson. An additional 71 "in lieu of" absentee ballots are being hand counted, Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera said at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The new figures pull Madrid to within 1,164 votes.

Election officials began hand-counting 1,496 provisional ballots Wednesday afternoon after determining they were valid.

Officials say a final count of those votes will be available Friday at the latest.

Workers disqualified about 850 provisional and "in lieu of" ballots and were double-checking the status of about 420 more provisional ballots Wednesday, though Herrera said most of those would also be disqualified.

Also still to be added to the totals are the results of several hundred provisional ballots cast in Sandoval County, plus smaller numbers cast in other counties in Congressional District 1.

Provisional ballots were disqualified primarily because the person who cast them was not registered to vote or was registered in another district, officials said.

Madrid will need to win about 80 percent to 85 percent of the remaining uncounted ballots to pull even, depending on how many of the 420 Bernalillo County ballots are qualified and on results of provisional ballots from other counties.

Democrats said they might seek a recount if the final tally pulls Madrid closer, and have expressed confidence that it will.

Wilson campaign manager Enrique Carlos Knell, meanwhile, said Wilson is more confident in the results now than she was when she declared victory one week ago.