About 800,000 voters outside Front Range rail district received Issue 7A
Oct 8, 2026 · 7 min · 5 segments
- Speakers
Kim MonsonHost
Oct 8, 2026 · 7 min · 5 segments
Kim MonsonHost
State officials, county clerks, and the district give differing accounts of who was responsible for telling counties the district's new boundaries.
About 800,000 voters in Adams, Oropaho, Douglas, and Weld counties who live outside the Front Range Passenger Rail District received ballots carrying Ballot Issue 7A, the district's sales tax and debt question, according to a letter from the district's lawyer to county clerks reported by the Colorado Sun.
Under state guidance, votes on 7A from those voters will not be counted, while the rest of their ballots will be.
Voters should vote the ballot they were sent, the statement said, adding that ballot processing does not begin until October 19th and that no votes have been tallied in the contest.
Europoho County Clerk and Recorder Joan Lopez said about 262,000 Europoho County voters who should not have received the question got it, according to The Sun, and Adams County officials said the error affects 275,000 voters there, according to Sentinel Colorado.
According to a notice from Urapaho County Elections, about 340 ballots sent to Columbine Valley voters who live inside the new district lines did not include 7A, and the county is mailing those voters corrected ballots.
If the county receives only a voter's original ballot, it will count that ballot without 7A.
And if the voter returns the corrected ballot, the county will count it and void the original.
Issue 7A asks voters in the district to approve a 0.333% sales and use tax that the district estimates would raise $295 million in its first full year, along with $580 million in debt carrying a total repayment cost of $785 million, according to the district's ballot notice.
Earlier, Kim Monson Newsroom reporting covered the district's decision to refer the tax and debt to voters.
Kim Monson said on the October 8th broadcast of The Kim Monson Show that 7A is on her own ballot, which it should not be, under guidance that state elections director Judd Choate sent October 7th to the clerks of the four counties.
Each county will program its voting system to count 7A only for eligible voters, according to Colorado Politics.
This means that, with some exceptions, ballots can be processed normally and the voting system will differentiate between those where the race can and cannot be counted, the guidance said, as quoted by Colorado Public Radio.
The exceptions include Beaumar in Oropaho County and Sterling Ranch in Douglas County, where voters who share a ballot style are not all eligible to vote on 7A.
Those ineligible will be signature verified, deconstructed, and then duplicated onto a ballot style that does not include 7A.
Chott wrote in the guidance, Governor Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 26-172 on May 26th.
It replaced the boundary description in the 2021 law that created the district with a list of 31 municipalities plus the Sterling Ranch metropolitan districts in unincorporated Douglas County, along with provisions that let other municipalities and metropolitan districts opt in.
State law requires the district to certify its ballot content to the Secretary of State, who then certifies it to the clerks of every county, wholly or partly within the district.
The Department of State and the Clerks Association said the district did not adequately communicate the district's updated boundaries to counties following a 2026 change in law.
State officials, county clerks, and the district give differing accounts of who was responsible for telling counties the district's new boundaries.
About 800,000 voters in Adams, Oropaho, Douglas, and Weld counties who live outside the Front Range Passenger Rail District received ballots carrying Ballot Issue 7A, the district's sales tax and debt question, according to a letter from the district's lawyer to county clerks reported by the Colorado Sun.
Under state guidance, votes on 7A from those voters will not be counted, while the rest of their ballots will be.
Voters should vote the ballot they were sent, the statement said, adding that ballot processing does not begin until October 19th and that no votes have been tallied in the contest.
Europoho County Clerk and Recorder Joan Lopez said about 262,000 Europoho County voters who should not have received the question got it, according to The Sun, and Adams County officials said the error affects 275,000 voters there, according to Sentinel Colorado.
According to a notice from Urapaho County Elections, about 340 ballots sent to Columbine Valley voters who live inside the new district lines did not include 7A, and the county is mailing those voters corrected ballots.
If the county receives only a voter's original ballot, it will count that ballot without 7A.
And if the voter returns the corrected ballot, the county will count it and void the original.
Issue 7A asks voters in the district to approve a 0.333% sales and use tax that the district estimates would raise $295 million in its first full year, along with $580 million in debt carrying a total repayment cost of $785 million, according to the district's ballot notice.
Earlier, Kim Monson Newsroom reporting covered the district's decision to refer the tax and debt to voters.
Kim Monson said on the October 8th broadcast of The Kim Monson Show that 7A is on her own ballot, which it should not be, under guidance that state elections director Judd Choate sent October 7th to the clerks of the four counties.
Each county will program its voting system to count 7A only for eligible voters, according to Colorado Politics.
This means that, with some exceptions, ballots can be processed normally and the voting system will differentiate between those where the race can and cannot be counted, the guidance said, as quoted by Colorado Public Radio.
The exceptions include Beaumar in Oropaho County and Sterling Ranch in Douglas County, where voters who share a ballot style are not all eligible to vote on 7A.
Those ineligible will be signature verified, deconstructed, and then duplicated onto a ballot style that does not include 7A.
Chott wrote in the guidance, Governor Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 26-172 on May 26th.
It replaced the boundary description in the 2021 law that created the district with a list of 31 municipalities plus the Sterling Ranch metropolitan districts in unincorporated Douglas County, along with provisions that let other municipalities and metropolitan districts opt in.
State law requires the district to certify its ballot content to the Secretary of State, who then certifies it to the clerks of every county, wholly or partly within the district.
The Department of State and the Clerks Association said the district did not adequately communicate the district's updated boundaries to counties following a 2026 change in law.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
