Curry, Wilson await Dist. 61 vote count after Republican Korkowski concedes

By Charles Ashby
Wednesday, November 3, 2010

One of the Colorado House races still to be decided has been reduced to two candidates.

That’s because Luke Korkowski, the Republican in the race to win House District 61, conceded Wednesday.

The Crested Butte attorney, however, isn’t quite sure whom he conceded to, Democrat Roger Wilson or independent Rep. Kathleen Curry.

“That’s the question I get,” Korkowski said. “I called both Kathleen and Roger. I’m far enough behind Roger that I’m not going to make up the difference with the votes that are left to count, and the only feasible way counting those votes will affect the vote is to help Kathleen. She still has a shot.”

Getting total vote counts from Tuesday’s election has been hard to come by in the five counties that make up the district, which stretches from Garfield to Hinsdale counties. At last count Wednesday, Rogers led with nearly 40 percent of the vote, while Korkowski was at 35 percent.

Curry mounted a write-in campaign because she left the Democratic Party late last year, and it was too late to make the ballot. She is hoping a large number of ballots that did not show a vote in her race are because people forgot to check the box before writing in her name.

As a result, there are no reliable vote counts showing where she stands in the race.

The three-term state representative already has filed a lawsuit against the Secretary of State’s Office over its ruling that because ballot-counting machines can only read those boxes, anyone who doesn’t check them won’t be counted.

Curry, however, says that is not what state law requires, and she plans to file a second suit to force the counties to count all of those ballots, by hand if necessary.

“We don’t know the results of this race yet,” she said. “Gunnison doesn’t have any (write-in) votes published anywhere, and we don’t know what the under vote is. That under vote is turning into the big issue. Those are the ballots that the box wouldn’t be filled in. It’s turning into a real big number.”

Unlike Korkowski, Wilson isn’t making up his mind one way or the other over whether he’s won or lost the three-way contest.

Wilson said he understands and even supports Curry’s desire to have all those ballots counted.

“The biggest issue is the Gunnison write-in results, so we’re waiting on that,” he said. “It’s close, but we really don’t know.”