By BRIAN PORTER | Rocky Mountain Voice
It may not be a historically-low turnout as many candidates from all corners of Colorado fear, but the primary election certainly doesn’t appear to be shattering any records.
With the weekend, Monday and Tuesday left in the primary election for both major parties and candidates, there have been 533,659 ballots cast. Registered voters cast 608,318 ballots in 2022, an upward trend from 2020. Another almost 75,000 ballots must be cast statewide in order to eclipse 2022. There has not been a downward swing in total ballots cast in at least the past four even-year primary elections.
Election Day is Tuesday, June 25. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day at voting centers throughout the state. Ballots may also be cast through the close of polls on Election Day at drop box locations.
The Secretary of State’s office reports that as of early Friday, June 21, 13.8 percent of ballots by all statewide voters had been cast. Among the 3,868,657 registered voters, 1,009,099 are Democrats, 905,047 are Republicans and 1,878,633 are unaffiliated. Unaffiliated voters may choose to cast a ballot in either party’s primary election.
Fourty-four percent of all ballots cast thus far have been in the Democratic Party’s primary election, with 42.3 percent of statewide voters participating in the Republican Party’s primary election. There were 72,381 unaffiliated ballots in process as of Friday morning.
A reason candidates are concerned with turnout might be better clarified in the 4th District, where firebrand U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert is attempting to switch districts and takeover the seat formerly held by U.S. Rep. Ken Buck. She has five opponents. In that Republican primary election, ballot count is 30,660 shy of the total in 2022 when Buck was opposed in the party’s primary. There were 109,230 ballots cast in 2020, when Buck did not face opposition from within the party.
As of Friday morning, 91,024 ballots had been cast in the 4th District, with 42,903 in Douglas County. There have been 14,366 ballots cast in Larimer and 7,311 in Weld. One which might be outperforming is Washington County, which has 1,097 ballots cast compared to 3,284 in Morgan County, which has about seven times the total population as Washington.
In the 4th District, a slightly higher total of 16.9 percent of registered voters have cast a ballot, representing 17.1 percent of all ballots cast statewide. The 4th District only amounts to 13.9 percent of all voters registered statewide.