An anti-smoking measure in a rural town lost its place in Colorado history when city officials discovered it hadn't passed after all. ``The election judges read the results backwards,'' City Administrator Roy Lauricello said Monday. About 17 percent of the estimated 4,600 registered voters in this conservative eastern Colorado town voted June 5 on the proposal to limit smoking in public. Afterward, the city said the ordinance passed 431-355, giving the City Council 60 days to decide how strict to make the regulations. But a recount Monday revealed the measure actually failed by 11 votes, Lauricello said. ``I'm in a state of disbelief that an error of this size could have been made,'' said Mark Simmerman, a public health nurse who campaigned for the measure. Thirty-four Colorado cities and counties have enacted smoking restrictions, but this would have been the first passed in a rural town, according to the Group to Alleviate Smoking Pollution.
