With five days left to return ballots in Colorado’s primary election, state and county officials said more votes have been cast in the Republican primary than in the Democratic contest, though registered Republicans are still voting at a slower pace than their Democratic and unaffiliated counterparts.

Through 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, county clerks had logged in 525,807 ballots, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office said Thursday in a news release.

With a turnout of just over 14% of the state’s active, registered electorate, voters in this year’s primary appear to be returning ballots more slowly than in the state’s last midterm election in 2018, when nearly 17% had returned ballots at the same point.

Voters have until 7 p.m. Tuesday to get their ballots to their county clerks.

Clerks reported that ballots have been received from 177,109 registered Democrats, followed by 175,368 unaffiliated voters and 173,274 Republicans. The majority of unaffiliated voters have so far chosen to participate in the GOP primary.

Since Colorado’s adoption of a semi-open primary system in the 2018 election, unaffiliated voters have been able to cast ballots in either major party’s primary. Those who didn’t pre-register to receive a specific primary ballot received both a Democratic and Republican ballot in the mail, but can only fill out and return one of them.

In total, clerks have marked in 240,544 Republican ballots and tallied 232,953 Democratic ballots. Another 52,295 ballots cast by unaffiliated voters have yet to be sorted.

Republicans are facing hotly contested statewide races for their party’s U.S. Senate, governor and secretary of state nominees, while the Democrats running statewide are all incumbents seeking reelection without primary opposition. Both parties have congressional and legislative races on their ballots in parts of the state.

It’s too late to put ballots in the mail, election officials warned. They urge voters to deliver completed ballots to one of the secure, 24-hour drop boxes located in every county or to visit one of the 130 county voting service centers where they can replace spoiled ballots, vote in person or even register to vote through Election Day.

As has been typical in Colorado’s mail ballot elections, older voters are returning their ballots at a much higher clip than younger voters, according to Thursday’s report.

Of the 525,807 ballots received, 280,584 are from voters age 65 and older – who make up less than 10% of Colorado’s population – accounting for more than 53% of the votes cast to this point.

Only 985 voters have cast their ballots in person through late Wednesday, the report said – amounting to less than 0.2% of the total number of Coloradans who have voted.

Jefferson County voters had returned the most ballots, according to Thursdays report, followed by El Paso, Arapahoe and Denver counties.

Voters can check their registration, find contact information for county clerks, locate ballot drop boxes and in-person voting sites and sign up to track their mail ballots at www.govotecolorado.com.