The Douglas County Commissioners Just Told You How to Vote on 15 Measures. Not on Their Own.

The three county commissioners sat down at a work session on Tuesday, October 6, and decided what they think of your ballot. The county published the list Friday. It is unusually complete, 15 measures with a position on all but one, and unusually quiet about the three questions the board knows best.

The list

The board supports Amendment 81 (law enforcement reporting to federal authorities), 82 (a right to natural gas), 83 (a right to hunt and fish), 84 (mail ballot voter ID), 85 (plain-language ballot questions) and 86 (congressional redistricting), and Propositions 132 (fentanyl penalties), 133 (penalties for trafficking a minor), 134 (sex-based participation in school sports), 135 (a ban on certain surgeries for minors) and 136 (an income tax rate cap).

It opposes Amendment 87 (a graduated income tax), Proposition NN (raising the TABOR revenue cap for K-12) and Ballot Issue 7A, the Front Range Passenger Rail District's sales tax.

It took no position on Proposition 137, which would dedicate sporting-goods sales tax revenue to conservation.

The only footnote is on 134: "Commissioners George Teal and Kevin Van Winkle supported Proposition 134. Commissioner Abe Laydon abstained." The release gives no reasons for any position and no vote counts beyond that.

What is not on the list

Questions 200 and 201, the citizen petition to expand the board from three commissioners to five, and Question 1A, the board's own August 31 referral asking whether all five would still be elected countywide, do not appear. Neither does Douglas County School District's 5A. On the one subject where the commissioners are a party rather than a bystander, the release is silent, which voters can read as discretion or as something else. Our page on 200, 201 and 1A explains how the three interact and how to vote them without contradicting yourself.

The 7A footnote the release does not have

The board's opposition to 7A arrives the same week the county learned that 7A was printed on every one of its roughly 289,000 ballots when only 5,967 Sterling Ranch voters are inside the rail district. The release does not mention that. The state has ordered the out-of-district votes left uncounted, so for the 283,000 or so Douglas County voters outside Sterling Ranch the commissioners' position is on a question their vote will not register on. What happened and what to do about it.

Where to go from here

Each of our measure pages now carries the commissioners' position in its facts box, next to what the measure does and what it would mean in Douglas County: all 14 statewide measures, and the full pages on 81, 82, 84, 87, 134, 135, 136, 137 and NN. We do not endorse; we tell you who does. More: every race and measure on your ballot.