Don’t delay if you haven’t returned your midterm elections ballot yet, El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Chuck Broerman says.

“We are considerably behind in returns,” he said. “Typically, up through today El Paso County is leading the pack in returns, but Jefferson County is leading the way this year in returns.”

Where to vote and return your ballot in El Paso County

El Paso County’s return rate was still in the 30% range Monday at mid-day, with roughly 149,000 ballots in the hands of the election department, Broerman said.

That’s about 50,000 to 60,000 behind the 2018 midterm election, he said.

“We’re now the largest county in the state, and I’m encouraging people to take a leadership position and make sure their vote is heard here,” he said.

Early voting statewide continues to lag previous years, according to tallies. 

Election 2022 by the numbers

7 p.m.: Time polls close on Tuesday and ballots must be returned or people must be in line to vote.

22: Length in inches of the midterm ballot for El Paso County, the largest in 34 years. Ballot issue 7A, pertaining to Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority one-cent sales tax funding, takes up nearly a whole side on one of the ballots,

11 statewide measures on the ballot: five referred by the Colorado General Assembly, six citizen-led initiatives.

13 local and municipal measures.

37 voter service and polling centers countywide, open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

39 voter drop-boxes throughout the county.

522 paid election judges.

3,000 hours of video at drop boxes watched for the midterm election so far, with no interferences noted (such as people returning many ballots at once).

3,600 hours of video at drop boxes watched for June primary election, with no interferences noted.

Source: El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Chuck Broerman

Midterm elections normally see a 54% to 58% return, and Broerman has projected that 270,000 El Paso County voters – out of 467,346 registered voters as of Monday – will cast ballots by 7 p.m. Tuesday.

There’s still time to register to vote, up to and including Tuesday, Election Day, Broerman said. Residents can go to one of 37 voter service and polling centers throughout the county and register in person.

El Paso County GOP censures local voter-contact group, demands they drop ‘Republicans’ from name

At the centers, people also can obtain a ballot if they moved and did not receive one in the mail.

Special-needs voters also can use devices to accommodate their needs.

Also, “If someone mismarked their ballot, draw a line and circle or color in the correct choice, and we’ll count it,” Broerman said.

Ballots can no longer be mailed to be counted, but the county election department operates 39 video-monitored, ballot-return boxes, where people can drop off their ballots until 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Broerman encourages people not to procrastinate, though.

“It’s not a good thing to do to wait until the last minute,” he said. “It costs extra time and money.”

If a large percentage of voters wait until after 3 p.m. on Tuesday, as some people who question the mail-in ballot system have been calling for, “it’s going to delay our results on election night,” Broerman said.

“We’re starting to see some races tighten up, in one U.S. Senate race here in particular, from leaning Democrat to a toss-up,” he said. 

“A handful of groups have been encouraging people to wait after 3 p.m. Tuesday to vote; they’re trying to tell people there’s something that will magically happen after 3 p.m and that’s not the case. They’re ill informed.”

For the past eight days, 522 paid election judges have been checking and verifying signatures on the back of ballot envelopes as they come in. After certifying that signatures match what’s on file, workers open the ballots in a pre-processing area before they go to tabulation.

The major political parties submit lists of election judges for bipartisan representation, Broerman said.

Colorado’s early voting continues to lag previous years, and the gap is widening

“We’ve exhausted their lists; the parties also sent supplemental lists, we exhausted those, then we hired additional people,” he said.

On Monday and Tuesday, Broerman is making the rounds to the voter service and polling centers, checking the signature verification process, pre-processing and tabulation areas.

“I’m inspecting, watching, monitoring to make sure everything’s going smoothly,” he said.

Election results will appear on the Colorado Secretary of State’s website.