Republicans take early lead as Colorado voters start to return ballots

Colorado voters are returning ballots at a faster rate than in previous off-year elections, according to data released Wednesday by the Colorado Secretary of State's Office.

With 13 days to go until Election Day, 241,287 ballots had been received and processed by county election officials — compared to around 175,000 ballots returned at the same point before the 2017 off-year election, and about 145,000 returned at the same point in 2015.

Voters are deciding two statewide ballot measures, and many are also electing municipal officials and school board members. More than 100 local questions are also on ballots.

Mail ballots started going out on Oct. 11 to the state's 3.49 million active registered voters, who have until 7 p.m. Nov. 5 to return them or to cast them in person at county voting centers.

So far, Republicans and older voter have been turning their ballots in at the highest rate, though the state's unaffiliated voters have been casting theirs at a significantly faster clip than in previous off-year elections, when voter turnout is routinely much lower than in even years.

Of the ballots logged so far this year, 94,786 have been cast by Republicans, 73,313 have been cast by unaffiliated voters, and 70,321have been cast by Democrats. That's compared to two years ago at the same point, when Republicans had returned about 70,000 ballots, Democrats had returned about 57,000 ballots, and unaffiliated voters had returned only about 46,000 ballots.

Voters age 65 and older account for 51.5 percent of all ballots returned, according to an analysis prepared by Magellan Strategies, while the breakdown between male and female voters is almost precisely even at this point.

"It is too soon to draw any significant conclusions from the data, but two groups that we'll be keeping a close eye on are younger voters (age 18-34) and Unaffiliated voters," said Ryan Winger, the GOP firm's director of data analysis, in an emailed statement. "To the extent that we see an increase from one or both of those groups, it would signal a shift in the electorate that would impact results from the statewide level on down."

According to Magellan's analysis, voters in the heavily Republican 5th Congressional District, which is based in El Paso County, have so far returned a higher proportion of ballots statewide than they did in 2015, the last off-year election that took place right before a presidential year.

Turnout in the heavily Democratic Denver-based 1st Congressional District and Boulder-based 2nd Congressional District appears to be slightly off the pace set in the 2015 election.

Election officials, however, caution against reading too much into early returns, since ballots don't all arrive in voters' mailboxes at the same time, and different counties use different procedures to collect and process ballots.

Likewise, all kinds of variables can account for differences in turnout from one election to the next — from snowstorms to whether or not there are hotly contested races on a particular voter's ballot.

Voters can update their registration, check out sample ballots, determine whether to expect a mail ballot, and find places to vote in person or where to drop off their ballots at www.govotecolorado.com.