Democrat Chris Biggs jumped ahead Friday to a 4,660-vote lead in the super-tight attorney general’s race.

Whether it lasts remains to be seen.

His opponent, Republican Phill Kline, says it won’t.

“We’re ahead,” Kline maintained. “Our numbers are more up to date than what are on the secretary of state’s Web site. And our numbers put us up by 3,786 votes with 5,599 yet to be counted.”

Kline led Biggs by 3,032 votes Friday morning. But as election officials in each of the state’s 105 counties sorted through provisional ballots, the lead switch to Biggs.

Provisional ballots are those cast by voters who may not be eligible to vote. They are set aside for review by county election officials and, if approved, are added to the final tally.

As of 5 p.m. Friday, election officials in 76 of the state’s 105 counties had forwarded their provisional-ballot totals to the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office.

Not yet in are the numbers from Shawnee, Sedgwick and Johnson counties. The three counties began counting provisional ballots but have not yet finished. They’re due Monday.

Because the Secretary of State’s Office will be closed Monday for Veterans Day, the official totals likely won’t be announced until Tuesday.

In the general election Tuesday, Biggs won Sedgwick and Shawnee counties but lost Johnson County.

“Out of the 5,599 provisional votes that are still out there, 2,884 are in Johnson County,” Kline said. “And for Biggs to catch me, he’ll have to get 83.82 percent of them. He won’t; I won Johnson County by 19,000 votes.”

Both Biggs’ and Kline’s campaigns had observers in most county courthouses Friday, recording their final tallies.

Election canvassers and county commissioners, from left, Charles Jones, Bob Johnson and Jere McElhaney, review provisional ballots. After Friday's canvassing of the provisional and other hand-counted ballots in Douglas County, 717 approved ballots were added to Tuesday's vote totals.

Biggs’ camp claimed neither victory nor defeat.

“This won’t be over until Tuesday, and there’ll probably be a recount after that,” said Biggs spokeswoman Cindy Luxem. “We’re not throwing in the towel.”

Douglas County’s provisional ballots were counted Friday, raising the county’s final count to Biggs with 18,937 votes and Kline, 11,664.

“Kline picked up 248 provisional ballots, Biggs picked up 469,” said Douglas County Commissioner Charles Jones, a member of the county’s board of canvassers.

“That’s almost identical to the percentages of everybody else who voted,” said Douglas County Clerk Patty Jaimes.

Of the 1,078 provisional ballots set aside in Douglas County, 696 were added to the final count, 382 were not.

¢ Election stories, vote totals

“Most of the ones that weren’t counted were first-time registrants :quot; that is, people who moved in but hadn’t registered to vote,” Jaimes said. “But we also had 86 advance ballots that weren’t counted because they came back without a signature.”

Besides the provisional ballots, the final tally included 21 ballots that could not be counted by machine.

Jaimes explained that to prevent running out of ballots, one of the precincts used photocopies of a blank ballot.

These photocopied ballots were valid but had to be counted by hand.