In the Battle of the Senators for the title Ms. 6th CD, Senator Ted Harvey edged out Senator Steve Ward at the 6th congressional district assembly on Saturday polling 53 percent to Ward's 43 percent. Pepito Castellanes, also ran and confirmed his "also ran" status by polling only 4 percent of the vote.

The result gets Harvey the top slot on the ballot for the Republican primary in August to succeed the retiring Tom Tanocredo.

Although Harvey was widely expected to secure the top spot coming out of the assembly, the vote was closer than some anticipated.

The Inside Edge wrote last week about a scheme for top contenders Wil Armstrong and Mike Coffman, who are both skipping the 6th CD assembly in favor of petitioning on the ballot, to instruct their delegates to vote "I abstain." The resulting media attention gave Ward an opportunity to convince the executive committee of the 6th CD to disallow "I abstain" votes thereby forcing voters to choose between Harvey and Ward for all practical purposes. Ward, sources tell us, was worried that he would not make the ballot if Coffman and Armstrong delegates were allowed to abstain from voting.

Late last week the 6th CD modified the rule to count "I abstain" as illegal ballots.

Sources with knowledge of the vote count told the Inside Edge that approximately 5 percent of all ballots cast were ruled illegal.

"This is a pretty big victory for Ward," said one 6th CD delegate. "It's also has to be considered a serious defeat for Harvey. Assuming he got about 80 percent of the Douglas County vote, that means that he probably polled only about 24 percent of the remaining votes."

All sides gave well-received speeches with Harvey burnishing his conservative credentials for the delegates and Ward emphasizing his military experience and tax-cutting record. Even Castellanes was politely applauded when he talked about hating taxes.

"For Ted it wasn't a complete disaster," said another source. "He got what he wanted. He got top line. On the other hand, Ted didn't look like the runaway favorite either. He's completely alienated his best sponsor, Senator Armstrong by running against Wil and if this doesn't work out for Ted, it may be over for him."

Wally's World note:

The Scheffel Shuffle continues: It's been 11 days and 1 hour since we've requested information from Mark Scheffel and the Elbert County Commissioners regarding the payment to Scheffel of over $200,000 for legal fee for the county. That's 265 hours and counting!

Wonder why they won't respond? And Scheffel wants to be a Colorado Senator. Whoa.