More votes counted didn't add up to good news for supporters of a measure to legalize medical marijuana in Arizona.

Elections officials across the state counted more than 23,000 ballots on Tuesday, but Proposition 203 is still failing by about 3,500 votes out of nearly 1.6 million votes counted.

The measure has been as close as a few thousand votes in daily tallies releases since Election Day. Officials say about 30,000 early ballots and some 59,000 provisional ballots still remain to be counted.

Medical marijuana proposals in 1996 and 1998 were approved but they never took effect. A more sweeping 2002 proposal lost.

This proposal would allow the use of the drug only for serious diseases including cancer.