Races for the legislature, county commissions and district attorneys across Colorado got a big kick in donations once mail ballots went out, Colorado Ethics Watch found by parsing campaign disclosures on file with the state.

Outside groups spent more than $3.7 million of the $11.5 million they put into state races after Oct. 24, Ethics Watch found:

Nearly a million dollars (in campaign contributions), or 8 percent of all independent expenditures during 2016, occurred on a single day, Oct. 28. This spending spike was largely due to a $439,855 expenditure made by a group called Colorado Safety & Justice, which in turn had just received a $420,000 donation from businessman George Soros. The expenditure was made to support Jake Lilly, a candidate for District Attorney in the First Judicial District (Jefferson and Gilpin Counties).

“What was remarkable was how much was spent while polls were open,” Luis Toro, the director of Ethics Watch, said Monday afternoon. “You’d expect more of it to be spent before. It tells us that people get nervous at the last minute.

“It was really a hard-fought battle for both the state House and the state Senate, so frankly we expected to see more money spent early to get out name recognition and stuff like that.”