Late Votes Move Results to Left

In the late night counting on Tuesday, November 5, Proposition CC was 10 points down, Proposition DD less than 1 point up, and Mike Coffman 5 points and about 2,000 votes ahead of Omar Montgomery and the rest of the field.

But, as of Friday at 5:00 pm, Coffman was just 281 votes ahead out of 74,000 cast. Proposition CC still lost, but by just 7 points and Proposition DD won by 3, with a total vote well over 1.5 million.

Two factors appear to be increasingly true in Colorado elections – much of the vote is cast in the last two days by people dropping off ballots and Democratic and liberal forces are mostly benefiting by their late turnout efforts, and the demographics of the late voters being younger, more unaffiliated and Democratic. Although for Proposition CC to lose by even 7 points, a majority of unaffiliated voters must have joined Republicans to vote “no,” but the late unaffiliated vote swayed liberal. They voted late in last spring’s Denver mayor’s election and shifted the final vote in favor of psilocybin in a narrow victory.

On Friday, two days after the election, with counting still being conducted, Denver added 25,000 and hit 162,000 voters, whereas Jefferson votes were in at 192,000 (only adding 1,000) and El Paso 179,000 (no change).