Referred Question 1A - Denver's Preschool Initiative - And, They're Still Counting

As of today, there is no final total on the vote for Denver's Referred Question 1A, that would raise Denver's sales tax by .12%.

The Rocky Mountain News reports that one of the machines utilized to count absentee ballots failed and, therefore, 40,000 absentee ballots remain to be counted.

1A, at this time, is ahead by about 590 votes. (Now, at 3:50 p.m. the lead has dropped to 293.) (Friday morning, 7:30 a.m. the lead has dropped to 255. It is reported that the automated counting of absentee ballots will, most likely, continue through the weekend.) (Okay, it's now 2:10 p.m. on Friday. The numbers haven't changed since I first looked at them at 7:30 a.m. today. Maybe another failure with the machine that reads the ballots? Maybe a "time out" for the DEC? Maybe we'll never know the final count.)

If memory serves, the organized support for 1A raised about $1.2Million for the campaign. There was no organized opposition.

About 65% of Denver voters actually cast ballots, and the latest figures I have on 1A show the following: 55,890 yea (50.27%) to 55,300 (49.73%) nay. At this time, a 590 vote lead for this ill-conceived boondoggle--supposing that it passes--does not speak well for either the popularity of the initiative or the snake oil advocacy of the initiative by Denver's mayor, John Hickenlooper.

More to come when the final count is, some day, completed. (And then, how can we be sure the final count is accurate, given the immensity of the Denver Election Commission's colossal failures this past Tuesday?) And, how many of Denver's citizens who may have opposed this initiative were disenfranchised by the DEC's incompetency?

We'll see...

P.S. If you wish to check the latest count from Denver, this site will provide those numbers...such as they are.