DENVER – Coloradans had returned more than 1.5 million ballots as of Monday morning, a day before Election Day, with some changes seen in demographics in this election when compared to the last midterm election in 2014.
Though Colorado’s counties have varying rates of processing ballots, there were a total of 1,514,817 ballots returned as of Monday morning, according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office.
Democrats have turned in slightly more ballots (519,833) than Republicans (515,131) at this point, and the state’s largest group of voters, unaffiliated voters, have turned in 461,154.
Women have turned in about 65,000 more ballots than men at this point, with about 55,000 more ballots cast by women who are registered Democrats than women who are registered Republicans.
Jefferson County voters have returned the most ballots thus far (195,486) with nearly identical splits among Democrats (66,058), Republicans (62,208) and unaffiliated voters (64,919).
Following Jefferson County, the counties with the largest number of ballots returned so far are: El Paso County (170,519), Denver County (167,131), Arapahoe County (166,262), Larimer County (108,321), Boulder County (108,022) and Douglas County (101,435).
One day before Election Day 2014, there were about 1.38 million ballots that had been returned. Magellan Strategies pollster David Flaherty, who has been tracking and analyzing the turnout throughout Colorado’s mail-in voting period, noted that Democrats lead the turnout total in 2018 so far, when Republicans were leading at this same time in 2014.
Flaherty notes that the Democrats’ lead in ballot returns so far and that “Democrats are voting earlier than they did in 2014” in almost all of Colorado’s 12 largest counties, except for Pueblo.
He also notes that the unaffiliated voter pace is well ahead of their 2014 pace—more than 100,000 ballots as of Monday, Flaherty said. He pointed out in his analysis that during the June primaries, unaffiliated voters chose Democratic ballots over Republican ballots by a 62 to 38 margin.
“Unaffiliated voters are voting at a level never before seen in a midterm election in Colorado, at least in this point in the cycle,” Flaherty said. “Meanwhile, Democrats do still appear to have an advantage over Republicans compared to 2014, as the two parties are roughly neck and neck, whereas in 2014 Republicans held a significant lead.”
Colorado's turnout as of Monday morning was about 41.8 percent of current active registered voters. In 2014, turnout was about 56.9 percent.
By 3:30 p.m., ballot returned were up to 1,636,971 and Republicans had taken a lead over Democrats of less than 2,000 ballots.
Still need to check your ballot status or figure out where to vote?
Voters can check their ballot status on the Colorado Secretary of State's website. Click on "find my registration," type in your voter information and click enter. Scroll down the page and look for "mail ballot status."
Voters can also register to vote on Election Day at a voting center, and can drop their mail ballots off at ballot drop boxes or voting centers up until 7 p.m. Tuesday.
To find a voting center or ballot drop box location, click here.
For more on Colorado’s voting and Election Day rules, click here.
For Denver7’s coverage of the 2018 midterm election, click here.
