JESUP - Had the 27 registered voters in the part of Jesup that lies in Black Hawk County actually voted on renewing the countywide local option sales tax last week, their city wouldn't have received any revenue anyway, elections officials said.

Voters in most of the county overwhelmingly approved extending the tax for five more years, but no one in this tiny part of Jesup voted, including Mayor Mark Collett.

Revenue from the 1-cent-on-the-dollar tax is distributed according to a formula that relies mostly on population numbers from the 2000 Census. At the time of the Census, no one lived in that part of town.

For Jesup, that would have meant "there's no distribution," said Renee Mulvey, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Revenue, which distributes money from the tax.

The formula is based 75 percent on population and 25 percent on an amount of property taxes levied by local governments.

Collett said he learned after the election that his city wouldn't have received a share of the revenue.

"That really sort of made me unhappy," he said. "I don't know where the misinformation came from that said Jesup should vote to begin with."

Voters in the small part of Jesup at the south end of town would have had to drive to Gilbertville to vote. County Elections Manager Kyle Jensson said she doubts that led to no votes there. Turnout for such ballot issues is typically low.

Black Hawk County supervisors conducted a final canvass of the election results on Tuesday. Only minor changes were made to some vote totals. The count confirmed that no one from Jesup living in the Black Hawk County area voted.

Collett told the Courier he got busy at work and forgot to vote. But he said the media have unfairly emphasized the fact that no one in the Black Hawk County portion of the city voted.

Revenue from the sales tax would have been used for water and wastewater services. Jesup gets revenue from the option sales tax in Buchanan County, where most of its residents live.

Collett said he'd make voting a priority.

"I know that in the future I will put that on the top of my list," he said. "In this particular one case, I honestly did not think about it one day, and I should have."

Adam Morris can be contacted at (319) 291-1461 or adam.morris@wcfcourier.com.