September 11, 2013 04:33 PM UTC

Last-Minute New Registrations Key in Morse Recall

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• by: Colorado Pols

We've been taking a look at the various voter turnout and registration statistics related to the Sept. 10th recall election, and a few numbers stick out as, well…interesting.

According to the Secretary of State's office, there were 83,782 total registered voters in SD-11 (Sen. John Morse's district) as of Sept. 1, 2013. In SD-3 (Sen. Angela Giron), the SOS office counts 97,186 registered voters as of Sept. 1. The last day to register online to vote in the recall election was Sept. 2, but residents could register in person up until Election Day on Sept. 10.

According to the turnout figures posted by the SOS for the recall election, there were 84,029 registered voters in SD-11 and 97,260 in SD-3. If these numbers are correct, and we have no reason to believe they are inaccurate, then a total of 247 new voters were registered in SD-11 in 10 days — most of them likely in person at the El Paso County Clerk's office. That doesn't seem like a high number by itself, but when you do the math in SD-3, only 74 new registrations were counted since Sept. 1 — but almost twice as many people voted in SD-3 as in SD-11. We understand that the Morse recall was more intense than the Giron recall, but statistically-speaking, those numbers don't make a lot of sense.

Why does this all matter? Because Sen. Morse was recalled by a total margin of 343 votes. Maybe those 247 new registered voters split their ballots on the recall, but from what we hear, Democrats did not put a lot of effort into a new voter registration program. For the sake of argument, if most of those 247 voters supported the recall, then they made the difference between an outright YES on the recall and a margin close enough to trigger an automatic recount.

For clarity's sake, here's those numbers again in a table format: