Roughly 800,000 Colorado voters have received ballots carrying a passenger-rail tax question they are not eligible to decide, after election officials in four counties used an outdated district map to build their ballots for the November election.
The measure, listed as Issue 7A, would create a 0.333 percent sales and use tax to fund the Front Range Passenger Rail District — generating an estimated $295 million a year and supporting $580 million in debt for a line connecting communities from Pueblo to Fort Collins. State lawmakers narrowed the district’s boundaries this year to 31 cities along the planned route, but the updated map never reached clerks in Adams, Arapahoe, Douglas and Weld counties through the usual channels, according to the officials involved.
The scale varies sharply by county. Adams County reported about 275,000 affected ballots, Arapahoe about 262,868, and Douglas County placed the question on all 289,000 of its ballots although only about 5,967 residents are eligible under the revised map. The rail district has apologized to the clerks for the communication failure.
The secretary of state’s office has directed counties to program their tabulators to count Issue 7A votes only from eligible voters, with extra testing and, in a few split neighborhoods, individual hand review. Officials stress that voters should not request new ballots: the one they received is valid, and only the rail question will be filtered. One opposition figure has argued the measure itself should be thrown out — a question officials say would be for the courts.
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