Licenses for illegal immigrants measure falls short of ballot

DENVER – An unlikely effort to get a controversial measure that would enable illegal immigrants to obtain Colorado driver’s licenses has failed to make the November ballot.

The group “Driver’s Licenses For All” announced Tuesday that it had gathered about 40,000 signatures, well short of the 86,000 valid signatures it needed in order to qualify for the ballot.

Proponents had argued that allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain licenses would encourage them to report more crimes and make them less likely to leave the scene of accidents.

But without any serious financial support or political experience, they never mustered much of a serious campaign.