Much has been written about why voters turned down Amendment T, the measure referred by the Colorado General Assembly to the November ballot that would have struck slavery from the language of the state Constitution.
Critics and voters have said the measure’s wording was confusing, or cited “ballot fatigue” — there were just too many issues for voters to decide on this year.
Related: Amendment T – the slavery question – hanging in limbo
Here’s another possible reason: Denver voters were by far the strongest supporters of Amendment T, but not enough of them actually voted on the measure to help it pass.
Final unofficial ballot numbers are in from Denver, and Amendment T won by about a two-to-one margin there, with 188,477 “yes” votes and 95,811 “no” votes.
But plenty of voting Denverites — more than the statewide average, in fact — “undervoted,” or didn’t make a choice on Amendment T at all. In Denver, almost 55,000 people who cast ballots didn’t vote either way.
Statewide, based on unofficial election results from the Secretary of State, Amendment T failed by a margin of fewer than 18,000 votes, with 1,285,310 “no” votes and 1,267,578 “yes” votes. In order for the amendment to have gone to an automatic recount, the difference would have had to have been a fraction of that — about 6,426 votes.
Rep. Joe Salazar of Thornton was disappointed when he learned just how close the measure came to passing. But he told The Colorado Independent he isn’t giving up. He said he plans to launch another effort to put the measure on the ballot and work with supporters to change the strategy so that voters will have a better understanding of the measure in the future.
From talking to others, the wording in the blue book made it sound like this measure would affect work programs in prisons. I doubt anyone thinks slavery should be in the constitution, but I do think that a lot of people support work programs and wouldn’t want them to be diminished. So yes, the way it was presented in the blue book was confusing and unless people read more elsewhere, I don’t think they fully understood the issue.
[…] voters left the question blank on their ballots, declining to answer it. And some voters that year said they just found the question too […]