Although 3,000 ballots remain to be judged, it looks as Glendale has nixed the notion of Wal-Mart to build a 24-hour, 220,000-sf superstore on a 39-acre parcel at the corner of 51st and Olive avenues. With the counted ballots strongly against the project, city officials say there doesn't appear to be enough Wal-Mart support votes to take the lead, but that an estimated 3,200 early ballots weren't counted by the voting machines and have yet to be included in the total.

Wal-Mart officials say they are concerned about the ballots whereabouts and that voting machines could have been programmed incorrectly, causing them to lose the tight race. Landowner Hayscale LCC, headed by a family that has owned the former farmland for years, pushed to have the election later in the year so it would have time to garner more support.

Instead, city officials quickly processed the referendum signatures so it could be on Tuesday's ballot. Hayscale and Wal-Mart began gathering the signatures for a referendum after the city council in December passed zoning stipulations that would have limited the store to just 100,000 sf and would have disallowed the 24-hour operation.