Posted: November 15, 2006

Colorado SoS Race Over

Yesterday, in a joint press conference, Democrat Ben Gordon conceded the race to Republican Mike Coffman. Although not all ballots had been counted, few enough remained that Coffman’s 27,457-vote lead was insurmountable. Gordon retains his position as majority leader in the state senate, and the two former opponent pledged to work together to fix the voting administration problems that caused excessively long lines. A report in the Rocky Mountain News estimates that as many as 18,000 expected voters may have been prevented from casting ballots as a result of the administrative problems that occurred in the state on election day. That number is noteworthy because it is about the same as the undervote in Sarasota County, Florida, affecting the thirteenth congressional district election in that state. The newspaper derives this number from the gap between projected turnout and actual turnout this year. The paper also quotes a Denver official who estimates that “somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 votes” were lost because of the problems. Even though Gordon will not contest his defeat based on these lost votes (nor could he have based on Coffman’s apparent margin of victory), it is unclear whether they will form the basis of a claim in other races. The Democratic candidate for a position on the University of Colorado board of regents, Stephen Ludwig, suggested that perhaps he could have expected to garner roughly two-third of the missing 18,000 votes. Although he may not need them to prevail—the Denver Post has him ahead by more than 3000 votes with provisional ballots from around the state still to be counted, conceivably he could attempt to challenge the result if the final count shows him short. A Denver tax levy is also potentially affected by these lost votes.