As of early Tuesday morning, more than 2.2 million ballots had been submitted through the mail or by drop-off to county voting centers around the state, beating the total number of ballots cast in Colorado in 2014 by more than 150,000.
Those who still hadn’t voted or even registered to vote could still cast their ballots through 7 p.m. Tuesday, and hundreds of thousands were expected to do so.
In heavily Democratic Boulder County, computer problems have caused a few delays. Elections spokesperson Mircalla Wozniak characterized the problems as “minor.”
Wozniak said printers in about half of the locations countywide have had problems, which means some Boulder ballots will have to be reviewed by elections judges, similar to the process for reviewing provisional ballots.
Wozniak estimated the total number affected ballots to be in the hundreds, out of more than 200,000 ballots expected to be cast countywide. So far, Wozniak said, they’ve had voter lines in only one place, at the University of Colorado.
The situation in Larimer County is a little messier. Election results there are unlikely to be available until Wednesday, according to The Loveland Reporter-Herald, citing the county’s clerk and recorder. While it’s not a technical problem, the Larimer County clerk and recorder said that election judges cannot count more than 20,000 ballots in one day, and the county anticipates more than 20,000 people will vote on Tuesday.
Long lines for voting appear to be rare. As of 3 p.m., in Denver, the longest wait has been about 45 minutes to an hour at the Capitol Hill Corona Presbyterian Church, but Alton Dillard, spokesman* for Denver Elections, pointed out that there are 26 voting centers around the city and most have no lines at all.
Secretary of State spokeswoman Lynn Bartels tweeted that the statewide voter registration system went down for 29 minutes late Tuesday afternoon, from 2:47 p.m. to 3:16 p.m. She says the system is now back up.
Billy Bob McCoy of Denver was one of the dozens who showed up at the Denver Elections office at 14th and Bannock Tuesday. He said he waited until Election Day to vote because he’s “old school” and likes voting on Election Day.
Gov. John Hickenlooper visited with voters in the line at Corona Presbyterian, shaking hands and thanking voters for waiting in line to vote. “It’s a beautiful day,” Hickenlooper said, and “an honor to watch people vote.”
Vote Check photo by League of Women Voters via Creative Commons license, Flickr
Photo of McCoy and Hickenlooper/Carrigan by Allen Tian, The Colorado Independent
*Correction: Alton Dillard is spokesman for Denver Elections Division, not its director.
