More than 18,500 people came out to vote in person Tuesday across El Paso County, contributing to lines at polling stations that in some places lasted well beyond the close of polls at 7 p.m., according to El Paso Clerk and Recorder Steve Schleiker.

“I really felt bad for a number of our citizens waiting out in line to vote,” said Schleiker on Wednesday.

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Some voters were in line until about 9 p.m., he said.

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Schleiker said that possibly record-long lines at polling locations like Fort Carson and the Citizens Service Center on Garden of the Gods Road did not dissuade voters, even in the face of impending winter weather. 

“Nobody went home, nobody left,” he said. 

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The large in-person turnout on Election Day, coupled with the verification process for long ballots this year, caused the wait for release of early results until around 8 p.m. Tuesday. 

Schleiker said his office had been expecting the delays, because each race’s early result had to be “called out” verbally under the supervision of election watchers before being submitted. During the submission process, vote counting must also be halted. 

In this process, election judges verbally announce each election total they’re going to send to input into the state’s records in the presence of bipartisan “watchers.”

Schleiker said this year’s long ballot with numerous candidates and issues makes that process longer for election judges, adding that it took about 30 minutes to download the initial vote tally Tuesday night.

“We knew it was going to take some time to upload all this to the election night reporting system,” he said. 

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As of Wednesday afternoon, about 50% of returned ballots have been counted. Schleiker said that about 100,000 ballots still need to be counted, while another 48,000 are awaiting adjudication by election judges.

About 4,000 ballots need to be cured due to factors such as missing signatures or an ID check, while oversees military voters still have 8 days to cast their ballots. 

El Paso seems to be comparable with other large Colorado counties including Arapahoe and Denver, which are both just above or below 50% ballots counted out of active voters. El Paso County was at about 52% on Wednesday.

Among the counties tabulating at a faster pace is Jefferson, which on Wednesday listed 82% voter turnout and 98% of returned ballots counted. 

Schleiker said that, as in the past, early unofficial results were mostly from mail-in ballots and those cast early in-person. He said early counts included about 235,000 ballots . 

The uncounted votes could make a difference in several races that are still too close to call in El Paso County. Rebecca Keltie and Steph Vigil are within 2 percentage points in their race for state Senate District 16, a difference of less than 500 votes.

State Senate District 12 candidates Stan VanderWerf and Marc Snyder on Wednesday were within 3 points, while Palmer Lake mayoral election candidates Glant Havenar and Shana Ball are within just a handful of votes of each other. A proposed lodging tax for Monument is also still close in preliminary returns. 

Schleiker said his office was hoping to release fresh counts multiple times Wednesday, with the latest coming around 6 p.m. 

“We are going to make a significant push today,” he said.