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The Price Of One Vote In Colorado

Written by Alan Gionet
DENVER (CBS4)- This year's presidential campaign is setting new records.

Even at a time when the economy has dipped from the last presidential election, the amount spent by the presidential campaigns of President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney and the Super PACs acting on their behalf are about double the amount spent in 2008. And that campaign year set a new record, far outstripping the amount spent in 2004.

This year, the campaigns for the two party nominees and the PACs are going to spend in excess of two billion dollars. In 2008 it was $1 billion.

There are nine big swing states in this election and the campaigning and the advertising has been concentrated in those states.

As we reported months ago, if you don't like it, you'll have to leave Colorado until after November 6. So we wondered, with all that money, how much would a vote cost the campaigns.

This is not exact science, but here goes….

Reporters for the National Journal used Federal Election Commission records and sources to come up with a number for Colorado, that isn't even reflective of the money in the final weeks of the campaign. They figure it at $79 million plus.

Okay, so I took that number and figured the polls generally show Obama and Romney will split about 96 percent of the vote.

No one knows how many will show up to vote when all is said and done this year, but in 2008, 2.3 million voted in Colorado. So, for lack of a better number, I divided that.

And that leads to us to this: The campaigns and PACs together paid at least 33 dollars for each vote in Colorado this election. Makes you wonder if they couldn't have just sent you a check.

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