About 800,000 Colorado ballots in Adams, Arapahoe, Douglas and Weld counties include Issue 7A, a proposed sales tax to support Front Range Passenger Rail—even though some recipients live outside the district and cannot vote on the measure. The ballots remain valid for the rest of the election. The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office says only votes cast by residents of the rail district will count on Issue 7A, and it has given county clerks instructions for separating eligible and ineligible ballots. The Front Range Passenger Rail District apologized to the four clerks’ offices, saying in a letter that a state law updating the district’s boundaries arrived on a compressed timeline. Because the district is a distinct entity under state law, the updated boundaries were not sent through the usual channels used by county election offices, the district wrote. The measure would establish a sales tax intended to support the proposed regional train service, branded Colorado Connector, or CoCo. The planned service would connect Pueblo and Fort Collins, with an initial phase between Fort Collins and Denver. Under state guidance, counties are to program their voting systems to count the measure only for eligible district voters and test that process. In most cases, officials expect ballots to be processed normally, with the system distinguishing ballots on which the question can be counted. The procedure needs extra steps in Bow Mar in Arapahoe County and Sterling Ranch in Douglas County, where residents received the same ballot style despite differences in eligibility. Clerks will set aside those ballots for review, verify signatures, and, where the voter is ineligible to vote on 7A, transfer the rest of the ballot to a version that omits the question, according to the state’s instructions. Ballot processing was scheduled to begin Oct. 19, and a joint statement from the Secretary of State’s Office and the Colorado County Clerks Association said no votes had been tallied as of Oct. 7. Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute and head of the committee opposing the measure, has called for Issue 7A to be invalidated. A spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office said the question of invalidation would be for the courts to decide.