Sarah Hunter and Greg Collins (incumbent) were clearly the top two vote recipients in the May 3rd election for the two open positions on the Colorado City Metro District Board of Directors.
Hunter garnered the most votes of 912 votes cast with an unofficial total of 275. That was 8.7% more than were received by Collins, with 251.
Collins had 13.1% more votes than Vance Hulben (218 votes) and Rod Clark had 168 votes.
The electorate have spoken. Well, 27.82% of the electorate have spoken. Over 2,350 eligible voters did not take the time to vote. Two thousand, three hundred, and sixty-six people (if my math is right), who could have voted by mail, without leaving the comfort of their home, chose not to vote.
Those 2,366 voters passed on having any input about water, sewer, recreation, covenant enforcement etc. Hopefully, they will also have passed on the right to complain about any CCMD controlled issues until the next election.
Hopefully, they have also forfeited their right to get on social media and whine and complain about the horrible job that the district is doing.
The ballot contained only the two positions for the CCMD. Pueblo West had three open positions for their Metro Board. Doug Proall (2,111); Nick Madero (1,987) and Joe Mahaney (1,869) led in those official votes.
The other Pueblo West candidates were Gregory Roberts, Jules Oliver, Danny Gowin, Matt Smith, Michael E. Douglas, Neil McCulloch, and Ryan Seybold.
In Pueblo West about 4,015 voters of a possible 20,000+ went to the polls, for an awe inspiring 19.62% of the people, who elected the three board members for the 20,000 plus people in Pueblo West.
Voting is a privilege, and roughly one-quarter of the people in Colorado City and Pueblo West chose to exercise that privilege.
Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, from 1861-1865, said “The ballot is stronger than the bullet.” Ironic.
Thomas Jefferson summed up the metro election 250 years before we had it. “We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”
Normally non-presidential elections have a significantly lower turnout.
Americans voted in record numbers in the last presidential election. Nearly 158.4 million ballots were counted. That works out to more than six-in-ten people of voting age and nearly two thirds of estimated eligible voters, according to a preliminary Pew Research Center analysis.
The turnout was about seven percentage points higher than in 2016. Turnout was higher than at least as far back as 2008.
Somewhere between 63 and 100 law suits were filed claiming voter fraud in that election. One source I read said that none of those suits had been won by the petitioners and one said that 2/3 of the suits had been won and left questions of more law suits filed.
My point is not whether or not there was fraud. I’ll deal with that more closely as we near the next presidential election. My point is that, why would we not vote in an election where our vote definitely counts?
We worry about water. We worry about sewer. We worry about whether the swimming pool will be open for our kids. Wish Metro would limit the number of taps sold every year? Metro decides that.
Anyway, it’s too late now. The vote is over. Thanks for those of you who voted. Congratulations Sarah and Greg. Thanks Vance and Rod for making it a race. And now for those of you who voted, your job isn’t done. Time to get involved. Talk to the board members. Go to meetings.
Then when one fourth of us work together to make Colorado City a better place to live, we can decide if the last presidential election was rigged.