Photos: Workers count over 50,000 absentee and early ballots

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Review Accu-Vote Board members Dee Bowns, left, and Lois Lester examine a ballot that wouldn’t scan, looking for stray marks that may have interfered with the optical scanner, at the state Region II Division of Elections office in Anchorage on Tuesday, November 11, 2014. As of Monday, over 50,000 ballots remain to be counted statewide.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dan Sullivan slightly increased his lead over Democratic Sen. Mark Begich, and Gov. Sean Parnell made up a bit of ground on challenger Bill Walker in his bid for a second full term, as Alaska election officials Tuesday continued counting votes in what promises to be a long process.

The effort -- held at five regional Division of Elections offices around the state -- was Round 2 of a process that began immediately after polls closed last Tuesday in the Nov. 4 general election. Last week, more than 220,000 votes were counted in those prominent statewide races.

On Tuesday, more than 17,000 additional votes were expected to be counted. But late Tuesday afternoon, after the Elections Division released a new update, the counting was not yet finished in Anchorage and Fairbanks.

Read more: Sullivan, Parnell gain ground in latest round of Alaska vote counting