DENVER – Colorado got its first look at early voting turnout numbers Monday as the Secretary of State’s Office released the first batch of total voting numbers thus far.
Every ballot is categorized by each voter’s registration and does not say how a person voted. Colorado law allowed county clerks to start counting ballots on Oct. 24.
The county clerk's offices open the ballots, check their signatures to validate them, and scan the results. However, the results will not be tallied or released until after the polls close on Nov. 8.
As of Monday, a total of 113,932 ballots have been mailed back or returned in person. Ballots were mailed to voters beginning Monday, Oct. 17.
Of the ballots returned so far, 48,030 were from registered Democrats; 36,790 were from registered Republicans, and 27,435 were from unaffiliated voters.
Libertarians have sent in 1,054 ballots; Green Party voters have sent back 345 and American Party voters have returned 265 ballots.
The highest number of returned ballots so far have come from Arapahoe County (16,244), followed by El Paso County (15,673), Denver County (15,672) and Jefferson County (13,809).
An Oct. 3 tally of registered Colorado voters found there were a total of 3,125,319 registered active voters statewide, meaning 3.65 percent of active voters have so far cast their ballot.
The turnout in 2014, which wasn’t a presidential election year, was third nationwide at 54.5 percent.
But in the last presidential election year, 2012, voter turnout was 71 percent – also third in the nation at the time.
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