A week after ballots began to be sent to voters across the state, a picture is starting to emerge as the Secretary of State is posting daily updates on returns. While no one will see exactly which candidates received votes until the polls close n November 8, we do see the breakdown in party affiliation among returned ballots, and can begin to make some assumptions as these numbers to build over the next two weeks.
According to the Denver Post, in 2014, the first year that Colorado had an all mail-in ballot election, Republicans outpaced Democrats in the early days of the ballot return window. Today’s statewide numbers are below:
Republican ballots returned: 36,790
Democrat ballots returned: 48,030
Unaffiliated ballots returned: 27,435
Other party ballots returned: 1,677
These are very early numbers; voters have returned just 113,932 out of more than 3.1 million ballots that were sent out to active voters last week. So don’t read too much into these numbers, but by mid-week next week, we should start to see a pattern emerge. In 2014, Republicans had a lead in the ballot count two weeks ahead of election day, and maintained a lead throughout the ballot return process. Republicans, do your patriotic duty and get those ballots in.