Ballots sent to county clerks are now approaching the half-million mark, according to Friday figures from the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office.

Total ballots turned in so far number 468,366, with about 100,000 ballots arriving in the last 24 hours.

Republicans continue to slightly outpace Democrats on ballot returns, with 168,065 sent in. Democrats have now sent in 162,906. Unaffiliated voters have turned in 132,066 ballots.

More than 61,000 voters in Jefferson County have sent in their ballots, topping the county-by-county counts, followed by El Paso and Arapahoe counties, both at just over 55,000 each.

Compared to the same day from the last mid-term election in 2014, the ballot returns lag by some 50,000. At that same time in 2014, Republicans had sent in 60,000 more ballots than Democrats.

The deadline for registering to vote and receiving a mail-in ballot from the county clerk is this Monday, Oct. 29. However, anyone eligible to vote who hasn’t registered can do so right up until 6:59 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 6 at any county voting service center.

To check your voter registration or to find out if your ballot has been accepted by your local county clerk, go to govotecolorado.com.

As of Friday, county clerks in two counties hope that ballots delayed in getting to voters have finally shown up in mailboxes.

In Bent County, in southeastern Colorado, 500 ballots had disappeared, according to County Clerk Patti Nickell. That’s about 20 percent of the county’s 2,500 ballots. She has reissued those ballots, according to a Wednesday statement from the Secretary of State’s Office.

Another 60,000 ballots were delayed by a snafu with the U.S. Postal Service in Adams County, according to that same statement. Those ballots were distributed on Wednesday, the Secretary of State’s Office reported, and should now be in voters’ hands.