Jovan Melton appeared to be narrowly defeating Terry Todd in the Democratic primary for state House District 41, but Arapahoe County elections officials were still counting votes on Wednesday, a day after the election.
Results on Wednesday showed Melton with 2,290 votes, or 50.57 percent of the vote, to opponent Terry Todd’s 2,238, or 49.43 percent. That’s a difference of just 52 votes.
Arapahoe County Clerk and Recorder Nancy Doty said officials still were examining mail ballots, including some with no signatures or with signatures that didn’t match. Doty said there also are military ballots coming in that can be counted up to eight days after the election.
The race had swung back and forth all night Tuesday, with the difference under 10 votes at times.
“For us, we are pretty confident that whatever else Arapahoe County is counting is going to follow the same trend,” Melton said. “We’re confident that we’ll be declaring victory here pretty soon.”
Under state law, an automatic recount occurs when the difference in the number of votes is within 0.5 percent of the highest number of votes received by a candidate in the race. Since Melton got 2,290, 52 votes would represent 2.2 percent, outside the automatic recall margin.
Todd, however, still could call for a recount, though he’d have to pay for it. He hasn’t done that yet.
“There are still some ballots out there that haven’t been counted yet,” Todd said.
Todd is the husband of state Rep. Nancy Todd of Aurora, who is being termed out of the House District 41 seat and is running for a state Senate seat. Melton, meanwhile, had the support of many of the state’s top black politicians, including former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb.
Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com
