How To Register For An Absentee Ballot In Colorado

Part of the national drama swirling effectually the Nov. 3 full general election is centered on voting by mail.

Just that'southward not the case in Colorado.

While some states will be sending ballots to all voters for the first time in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential health risks of in-person voting, all registered Colorado voters take been receiving ballots past mail service since 2013.

The habit of voting past mail was established long before that for many Coloradans, said Angela Myers, Larimer County clerk and recorder. About 70% of state voters had already opted to be placed on a "permanent mail election" list maintained past the land.

Voters enjoyed receiving a election in the mail, filling it out at their convenience and returning it past mail or past manus at secure drop boxes by 7 p.g. on Election Day.

"We were already 70% of the fashion at that place with our voters," Myers said. "When the legislature became involved, it was an piece of cake telephone call in 2013."

That year did non have a presidential or gubernatorial election, so Colorado and its counties could test the expanded organisation with a relatively small turnout and see where it needed improvements.

Paid volunteers work to process ballots at the Larimer County counting facility in Fort Collins, Colo. on Thursday, June 25, 2020.

"It was an development for us," she said.

In addition to expanding mail balloting, the Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act allowed eligible citizens to register to vote up to and on Election Twenty-four hour period. It also required the establishment of voter service and polling centers, where voters could update their registration information and cast ballots in person.

With years of experience under its chugalug and a willingness to tweak its voting system to be responsive to voter needs, Colorado is considered the "gilt standard" for ballot systems, said Secretary of State Jena Griswold.

She noted the Washington Post and a onetime head of the Department of Homeland Security have said Colorado's voting system is the most secure in the country.

Improvements to the statewide voter registration and balloting systems were championed by Republican and Democratic secretaries of state alike. Griswold, a Democrat, was elected in 2018.

Potential problems with post balloting raised by critics — stolen ballots, forged signatures, voter compulsion, delayed results — are rarely experienced in Colorado.

Since 2006, five cases of voter fraud take led to criminal convictions in Colorado, co-ordinate to a database maintained past the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research and educational activity establishment.

Historically, mail balloting across the country has non had serious issues, said Kyle Saunders, a professor of political scientific discipline at Colorado State Academy.

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"Nigh of the empirical prove does not support the idea that fraud is a business concern," Saunders said. "I tin't say that it never happens; nobody tin. There accept been incidents.

"By no ways accept they been formative of an outcome."

States with less experience with post balloting tin can acquire from Colorado the best practices for having successful elections, Griswold said.

"We're working with other states on every single slice of how our model works because it is so successful," she said. "I fundamentally believe that our ramble right to vote should not exist dependent on the states we happen to alive in or the color of our skin or the corporeality of money in our bank account."

Scott Gessler, a Republican, was secretary of state when all-mail service balloting was mandated by the Legislature. He was not a fan of mail-in voting and so and nonetheless isn't.

Gessler said people like the convenience of postal service-in voting, and he respects that. But he considers it the least secure balloting method.

When he was secretary of state, Gessler said, he heard virtually cases of noncitizens illegally registering to vote either intentionally or past mistake.

Various databases, such every bit driver'due south license applications, must be regularly checked to ensure noncitizens don't annals to vote and receive ballots, he said.

Under electric current Colorado law, people applying for a commuter's license or Medicaid are automatically registered to vote, if they are eligible. They are sent a notification and may opt out of existence registered.

States new to all-post balloting are likely to take problems considering they don't have systems developed over fourth dimension that ensure they have accurate post addresses "that correspond actual human beings."

"Colorado does take the advantage of this time, but I'k here to tell you, information technology requires constant vigilance," Gessler said. "It's like your teeth: If you lot stop paying attention, it will go away."

A system years in the making

Voting by mail has a long history in the United states of america.

During the Civil State of war, Matrimony and Confederate soldiers sent ballots from their battleground units to their home states to be counted.

In the belatedly 1800s, states passed laws allowing civilians to cast absentee ballots provided they had an alibi for non voting in person, such equally disease or altitude.

During World War II, laws were passed that immune military machine service members stationed overseas to cast absentee ballots. Federal legislation passed in 1955, 1986 and 2009 made voting easier for service members and their families.

The federal Help America Vote Act of 2002, which was crafted in the wake of Florida's infamous "hanging chads" and other problems with the 2000 presidential election, opened the door to election reform and increased mail balloting in Colorado.

A paid volunteer collects a stack of ballots from a counting machine as workers process ballots at the Larimer County counting facility in Fort Collins, Colo. on Thursday, June 25, 2020.

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The law mandated that states update their election procedures, including buying new voting machines and creating computerized statewide voter registration databases.

To meet the requirements of HAVA, Larimer County Clerk and Recorder Scott Doyle and his staff developed a model for conducting in-person voting at large vote centers rather than at traditional precinct polling places.

Larimer County experimented with the model in the 2003 coordinated ballot. In 2004, the Colorado General Assembly passed legislation allowing vote centers to exist used in general elections.

The model worked and then well in Larimer County it was adopted in several locations across the country and land.

The system was designed to concur down costs and improve efficiency past having fewer voting sites. A key element of the vote heart model was developing a countywide voter registration ringlet to ensure a voter couldn't vote more than once, Myers said.

Fewer than one% of ballots get rejected

The statewide voter registration roll makes mail balloting possible. If a voter shows upwardly at a voter services center on Election Day and the registration system shows they have already voted past mail, they won't be allowed to vote again.

If they insist on casting a ballot, they won't be turned away simply will be issued a provisional ballot. The thing eventually will exist sorted out, and the ballot that was received first will exist the i that counts.

Ballots can be rejected of a variety of reasons, including late arrival, signature discrepancy, no signature, and no identification, if required.

In 2018, of the more than 2.iv meg general election ballots bandage in Colorado, 19,843 or 0.8% were rejected, according to state voting records. In Larimer County, 670 ballots, or 0.36% of the 184,021 bandage, were rejected.

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In the 2016 presidential ballot, 0.nine% of ballots cast statewide were rejected, with 0.6% of ballots rejected in Larimer County.

This year'south election is probable to become well in Colorado, fifty-fifty with all the "racket" on social media and other outlets questioning the security and validity of post balloting, Myers said.

Nonetheless, states that are not accepted to conducting mail elections on a large scale might struggle and encounter issues, she said. Administrative failures could "open up the window for the potential of fraud."

Most problems with casting ballots result from voter confusion rather than "bad people" trying to get away with something, Myers said: Life happens, and people make mistakes.

"When you brand changes, voters get confused," she said. "And that creates voter disenfranchisement, which nobody wants, if at that place isn't a big enough window to get it fixed and become it right."

A voter slides a ballot into the ballot box at a drop off location at King Soopers on College Avenue in Fort Collins, Colo. on Tuesday, March 3, 2020.

The goal is increasing voter turnout

Societal and technological changes have always afflicted the way Americans vote, Saunders said. Technological advances led to innovation.

In the 1950s and '60s, academics developed a formula for predicting the probability of a person participating in an election.

Factors are the probability that the vote will matter, as in someone will get elected; the benefit of that person getting elected; and the civic duty of participating in the democratic process.

Those are weighed against the "toll" of voting, as in the time and effort to annals and cast a ballot. If the perceived benefit of participating plus the goodwill of doing ane's duty are greater than the cost, a person is more probable to vote, Saunders said.

In Colorado, the convenience of post ballots and early voting, coupled with the ease of registering to vote, reduces the cost of voting for many people, he said. The ultimate goal is to increase voter turnout.

In fourth dimension, and if adequate safeguards against fraud tin can exist put in place, voting online could exist a fashion to increase participation, he said.

"We are in an era where our norms and our ideas about elections simply oasis't caught upwards with where we are technologically," Saunders said. "Simply we've made progress in reducing the cost."

How signature checks are done

Colorado voters receive ballots that are specific to where they live, with ballots listing pertinent issues and races for elected offices. A bar code on the return envelope identifies the voter.

When a ballot is returned to a county clerk's office, the first processing footstep is to verify the signature on the exterior of the envelope by comparing it to the voter'south signature on file with the country'southward voter registration organization.

In Larimer County, the ballot is run through a machine chosen Agilis that has the same applied science banks utilise to verify signatures. The automated arrangement usually verifies signature on about 50% of ballots, Myers said.

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Ballots that are not mechanically verified are given to a bipartisan team of election judges who compare the submitted signature to the registration signature. If the judges concord the signature matches, the ballot is sent on for further processing.

If they don't agree, the ballot goes to a second ready of judges who compare the election signature to signatures from the voter that have been recorded over time.

Ballots wait to be processed through a machine at the Larimer County counting facility in Fort Collins, Colo. on Thursday, June 25, 2020.

If something appears to be wrong with the signature — or if there is no signature — the election is not opened. A letter will be sent to the voter notifying them they have eight days to "cure" the ballot.

"If you don't cure your election, that envelope is never opened," Myers said.

Verified ballot envelopes are sent through another machine, OPEX, that slices open the render envelope on two sides, allowing a gauge to extract the ballot without viewing its contents. The ballot is unfolded, checked for damage or other issues that might foreclose it from going through a counting automobile, and placed in a tray for counting.

Ballots are run through a counting automobile and returned to trays that are sealed and cataloged.

A strict count of the ballots is maintained throughout the process. The chain of custody of ballots is documented, and video cameras record each footstep in the process, Myers said.

This year's ballots are expected to be delivered to voters the week start October. 12.

In Colorado, processing ballots may begin 15 days earlier Election Twenty-four hours. The goal is to take results available that night.

Nevertheless, Myers said, if more than 20,000 ballots are received on Election Day, terminal results will not be available that dark. Counting will be halted at midnight and taken upwardly the following morning time.

Myers said she fully expects that volition be the case with this yr'south ballot.

Volition the U.S. Mail service deliver?

Colorado has been party to two high-contour civil actions against the U.Southward. Postal Service and Postmaster Full general Louis DeJoy in recent weeks related to the election and postal service balloting.

A federal judge in Washington issued an injunction forcing the Postal Service to terminate operational cutbacks that could slow the delivery and return of ballots. Colorado and xiii other states were involved in the case.

In a separate example, Griswold sued the Mail to stop its distribution within the country of a mailer intended to provide basic data on how to vote by mail service. The information, which advised applying for an absentee ballot, was not correct for Colorado and would cause voter confusion, the state argued.

In a settlement, the Post agreed to destroy the remaining mailers and to allow state officials to review any other national media well-nigh the election the bureau would circulate in Colorado.

Election volunteers Len Pearson and Lary Steinhauer empty ballots from a drop box at the Larimer County Courthouse Wednesday in Fort Collins.

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Despite the legal battles, Griswold said she has confidence that the Postal Service will be able to evangelize and render ballots in a timely manner this year.

She said DeJoy personally assured her that would be the case.

"I will make sure that he does what he says," she said.

Myers said the Postal Service "has always been a great partner" in the past when handling ballots and she expects it will be again this twelvemonth.

Ballots being returned by mail should be mailed eight days before Election Day at the latest, Myers said. Postage volition be one first-class stamp, which costs 55 cents.

Ballot drop box locations will be available across the county beginning Oct. 9. Locations volition exist listed in ballot packets sent to voters.

Griswold said turning the integrity of the election into an ballot issue could create voter confusion and distrust. She is confident Colorado'due south election system is upwards the task of delivering make clean, authentic voting results.

"My hope is that one time we get through this ballot, we continue the conversation about national standards to make sure every American really does have access to free and fair elections," she said.

Story continues beneath.

Kevin Duggan is a senior columnist and reporter. Contact him at kevinduggan@coloradoan.com. Support his piece of work and that of other Coloradoan journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.

Rail your Colorado ballot

Ballots for the Nov. 3 general ballot are expected to be delivered by mail to voters the week of Oct. 12.

Larimer Canton voters who return ballots by mail or drop box tin can verify the status of their ballots online by visiting votelarimer.org and clicking the "Runway your mail-in ballot" icon, which connects to the Colorado Secretary of State's website.

Colorado has a new system that will notify a voter by phone, email or text about the status of their ballot from the time it is mailed by their county clerk to when their voted ballot is received and accepted for counting.

The service — BallotTrax — is available in all 64 counties. To enroll online, visit colorado.ballottrax.cyberspace.

Timeline of voting access

Highlights of the history of voting by mail:

1864 – Spousal relationship and Confederate soldiers may transport ballots home to be counted.
Tardily 1800s – States laissez passer laws allowing civilians to cast absentee ballots provided they had an excuse for non voting in person.
1942 – During Earth War II, military machine service members stationed overseas may cast ballots.
1974 – Washington becomes the kickoff country to offer no-excuse absentee voting.
1980s – California allows no-alibi absentee voting.
1984 – Colorado voters corroborate the Motor Voter Act, which allowed voter registration when applying for a driver'southward license.
1993 – Federal legislation allows registering to vote by mail or when applying for a driver's license.
2000 – Oregon issues all ballots for a presidential ballot by post.
2002 – Congress passes the federal Help America Vote Act, HAVA.
2004 – Colorado approves using vote centers in general elections.
2011 – Washington issues all ballots by mail.
2013 – Colorado sends ballots by postal service to all registered voters.