Number of ballots returned by Colorado voters eclipses 1 million in 2024 election

The number of completed ballots returned by Colorado voters for the Nov. 5 election eclipsed 1 million over the weekend, state election officials said Monday.

Democrats claim an edge of 2.4 percentage points over registered Republicans in the number of ballots submitted so far, but GOP voters — a smaller group — have turned out at a slightly higher rate.

With 1,059,861 ballots were received by clerk’s offices across the state’s 64 counties as of 11:59 p.m. Sunday, just over a quarter of Colorado’s nearly 4 million active voters have now made their voices heard in the bruising contest that pits Vice President Kamala Harris against former President Donald Trump at the top of the ticket.

The largest group of voters to have turned in their ballots is neither Democrat nor Republican: 421,781 unaffiliated voters have voted thus far, making up nearly 40% of ballot returns. Democrats, who hold a nearly 3-percentage-point advantage over Republicans in the number of registered affiliated voters in Colorado, have returned just over 325,000 ballots, while Republicans have submitted just shy of 300,000 ballots.

The voter turnout rates within each pool of voters so far are 32.2% for Republicans, 31.3% for Democrats and 21.2% among unaffiliated voters. Those turnout rates are among voters considered active due to their voting history; the total number of registered voters in the state is about 4.6 million.

This election cycle’s ballot returns lag badly behind the nearly 1.8 million ballots that were turned in at the same point — eight days before Election Day — during the 2020 election. Ballots were first mailed out to voters on Oct. 11.

The older end of the electorate continues to be more active in voting than the younger set this fall, with nearly 62% of completed ballots submitted by Coloradans 55 and older. Less than 14% of ballots have come from voters 18 to 34 years old.

Women 55 and older are outpacing men in the same age group, but more younger men — 54 years old and down — have submitted ballots than women in those age groups.

For voters who want to make sure a ballot dropped in the mail makes it to their clerk’s office in time, state election officials said Monday was the last day to do that. Any later, and ballots may not arrive by the legal cutoff time of 7 p.m. on Election Day. They urge voters to use drop-off locations or boxes.