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We’ve been try­ing to get The Spot out the vir­tu­al door and for a day and a half now, but the polit­i­cal news just keeps hap­pen­ing or evolving.

Like Colorado’s elec­tion turnout. As Saja writes below, it’s at record lev­els, but we don’t know pre­cise­ly where it will end up because the Asso­ci­at­ed Press esti­mates that 10% of votes haven’t been count­ed yet.

It has been an excit­ing week, and not only at the nation­al lev­el. Col­orado vot­ers did the near-unthink­able Tues­day when they agreed to get rid of the Gal­lagher Amend­ment, which had made res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty tax­es among the low­est in the coun­try. At the same time, though, asked if they want­ed to pay less income tax, they respond­ed with a “heck, yeah,” to that, too.

We have lots of deep dives com­ing your way, but below are a few nuggets to tide you over in the meantime.

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Have a ques­tion about the elec­tion? Sub­mit it here and it’ll go straight to The Den­ver Post pol­i­tics team.

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Top Line

Colorado’s wolf rein­tro­duc­tion ini­tia­tive was head­ed for vic­to­ry Thurs­day as oppo­nents con­ced­ed defeat and back­ers hailed the prece­dent-set­ting shift of state vot­ers direct­ing their gov­ern­ment for the first time to intro­duce an imper­iled species. The out­come means “paws on the ground” by late 2023.

Capitol Diary • By Saja Hindi

Getting out the vote

There’s no doubt Col­orado vot­ers turned out in record num­bers this elec­tion, with more than 3.3 mil­lion cast­ing bal­lots — about 78.5% of all reg­is­tered vot­ers. In 2016, it was 74.3%.

It’s not quite the 80% or high­er that state elec­tion direc­tor Judd Choate had antic­i­pat­ed — yet — but it does put Col­orado in the top states for turnout among the vot­ing eli­gi­ble pop­u­la­tion, accord­ing to data from the Unit­ed States Elec­tions Project.

Among active reg­is­tered vot­ers, the Col­orado Sec­re­tary of State’s Office report­ed turnout as 86.9%. In 2016, it was 86.7%.

“This year’s unprece­dent­ed vot­er turnout and polit­i­cal engage­ment gives me hope for the future, espe­cial­ly the next gen­er­a­tion,” said Matt Lynn, spokesman for the Inter­faith Alliance of Colorado.

The offi­cial bal­lot count is con­tin­u­ing with a cou­ple of out­stand­ing state­house races and bal­lot issues, but unlike oth­er states that are still count­ing bal­lots and try­ing to fig­ure out Elec­toral Col­lege votes for pres­i­dent, Biden’s path to vic­to­ry was clear. That’s, in part, cred­it­ed to Colorado’s tried-and-true mail bal­lot system.

In the days lead­ing up to Tues­day, Den­ver Post reporters spoke to Col­orado vot­ers about what drove them to the polls, and the major­i­ty cit­ed the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and the polar­iza­tion around Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump. But Colorado’s bal­lot also had some dri­vers, too, includ­ing Propo­si­tion 115, the 22-week abor­tion ban that was defeat­ed, and Propo­si­tion 113, the nation­al pop­u­lar vote, which passed.

Relat­ed: The lat­est Col­orado elec­tion results.

Relat­ed: The Vot­er turnout charts.

Relat­ed: State Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers select their lead­ers.

#COpolitics news • By Justin Wingerter

Look west for Colorado’s new swing county

As the clock struck mid­night Tues­day, just 17 votes stood between two Garfield Coun­ty com­mis­sion can­di­dates. And in a dif­fer­ent coun­ty com­mis­sion race, a six-term incum­bent was los­ing. Both of the Repub­li­cans end­ed up pulling off the wins, but by less than three per­cent­age points each.

Repub­li­can Lau­ren Boe­bert lost in Garfield Coun­ty, despite liv­ing there for half her life, own­ing a well-known restau­rant there, hav­ing the endorse­ment of the coun­ty sher­iff, and ulti­mate­ly win­ning the 3rd Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict race. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump also lost in the coun­ty, and Sen. Cory Gard­ner just bare­ly won it.

There are long-term impli­ca­tions. Those coun­ty com­mis­sion races were large­ly focused on oil and gas issues. The com­mis­sion has been friend­ly to the indus­try; the chal­lengers were not. 

A micro­cosm, in oth­er words, of Colorado’s ener­gy politics.

ICYMI: Michael Ben­net says he won’t be Joe Biden’s edu­ca­tion sec­re­tary, if Biden wins.

Mile High Politics • By Conrad Swanson

A first step toward municipal broadband?

Vot­ers in Den­ver were deci­sive in Tuesday’s elec­tion, but few issues pro­duced as strong a result as Mea­sure 2H, which had 83% sup­port as of Thurs­day afternoon.

The mea­sure, spon­sored by City Coun­cil­man Paul Kash­mann, would opt Den­ver out of a 2005 state law restrict­ing gov­ern­ments from using tax dol­lars to build broad­band net­works. The move would allow the city to enter into a high-speed inter­net busi­ness, should city offi­cials want to go in that direction. 

While city offi­cials haven’t said they want to launch a new city util­i­ty, now they have the option. Kash­mann has said at the very least the move should give the city more lever­age when nego­ti­at­ing with cur­rent broad­band providers. 

The result — though pre­lim­i­nary and unof­fi­cial — puts Den­ver in line with about 19 oth­er munic­i­pal­i­ties that opt­ed out of the same law in 2017. Those cities aver­aged an 83% approval mar­gin, just like Den­ver. 

Mea­sure 2H drew no orga­nized oppo­si­tion, though inter­net providers said they opposed the move. 

At the moment it appears they won’t have any new com­pe­ti­tion. City offi­cials have said a full build­out of a munic­i­pal broad­band sys­tem could take 10 years and cost $1 billion.

Nev­er say nev­er, though. Vot­ers in Long­mont and Fort Collins approved sim­i­lar mea­sures sev­er­al years ago with­out a clear inten­tion to start a munic­i­pal broad­band com­pa­ny. But now both cities oper­ate their own high-speed inter­net ser­vices that have been met with wide­spread acclaim. 

More Den­ver elec­tion results

• Vot­ers approved 2J, the repeal of the city’s pit bull ban.
• Vot­ers approved 2A, which would raise Denver’s sales tax to fund green ini­tia­tives, and 2B, which would increase the sales tax to help peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing home­less­ness.

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