Facing a relatively sparse ballot, turnout is light for this year’s Eagle County election

This year’s Eagle County ballot is just one page, with relatively few candidate races and ballot issues. Turnout seems to reflect that light workload for voters.

According to Eagle County Clerk and Recorder Regina O’Brien, as of Nov. 3 only about 20% of the county’s active, registered voters had cast ballots, either by mail or at the several drop boxes around the area.

That’s fewer votes cast than 2021, when roughly 22% of voters had returned ballots by the Saturday before Election Day. But this year’s election has garnered more interest than 2019, when only 18% of active, registered voters had returned ballots by the Saturday before Election Day.

In an email, O’Brien wrote that just more than 5,100 ballots were returned on Election Day in 2019, with just more than 6,300 ballots returned on Election Day in 2021.

With the exception of Vail, where 10 candidates are seeking four seats on that Town Council, there are few candidate races this year.

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In Eagle, Bryan Woods, Jamie Woodworth Foral and Nick Sunday are the registered candidates. Robert D’Agostino and Tom Olden are conducting write-in campaigns.

All four candidates for the Eagle County School District’s Board of Education are running unopposed in their director districts. There’s only one contested seat on the Colorado Mountain College board of trustees, Mariannee Virgili and David Use are competing for the trustee seat in District 2.

This year’s ballot has a few financial questions for voters. Eagle County’s Ballot Issue 1A asks voters to keep revenue collected from a lodging tax passed in 2022 by voters in unincorporated Eagle County and the town of Gypsum. The question is needed because the revenue collected so far exceeds the amount estimated in the original ballot question. Asking voters to keep that excess revenue is a requirement of the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, amendment to the Colorado Constitution.

Avon voters are being asked to impose a 4% use tax on construction materials. The tax is estimated to collect $6 million per year. If approved, the revenue would be used for “any municipal purpose.”

The Eagle County School District is asking voters for a new property tax mill levy. That tax increase would raise an estimated $3.5 million in its first year, with proceeds going toward staff recruitment and retention, safety and security, support services including mental health counseling and maintaining programs including art, music and physical education.

The district’s other ballot question asks voters for a $100 million increase in the district’s debt. That money would be used for building employee housing, upgrades in safety and security, expanding early childhood education in Gypsum and Edwards, school repairs and updating playgrounds, gyms, locker rooms and athletic facilities.

In addition to the local questions, state lawmakers this year put a pair of issues on the ballot.

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Proposition II is another TABOR-related question, asking if the state can keep excess revenue collected from a tax on cigarettes, tobacco and other nicotine projects. If voters agree, that revenue — an estimated $23.65 million — will go toward the state’s free preschool program.

Proposition HH is an attempt to ease the potential tax hikes due to this year’s significant increases seen in this year’s revaluation of residential and commercial property.

The proposal would use surplus revenue from the state to enhance reduced tax collections for counties, fire, ambulance and hospital districts, as well as school districts and other local governments. The proposal would create a new taxation level for second homes in the state.