Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

Interest in voting-by-mail skyrockets in Colorado

By Myung Oak Kim, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 21, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size  

Related Stories

More Elections

More stories »

The ballots may be in the mail but some voters aren't waiting for them.

Many mail ballot applicants showed up at early voting sites Monday, concerned that they're running out of time to vote in the high-interest election.

Some said they had requested a mail ballot but hadn't gotten it yet. Others weren't sure if they had requested one. Still others were convinced their ballot got lost.

"I think that people are very anxious to vote in this election. They're excited about it and that's great," said Denver Elections Director Michael Scarpello. "But we also want them to know that they need to have patience."

Elections workers are advising people who applied for a mail ballot after Oct. 1 to wait another week before requesting a replacement or casting a provisional ballot at early voting sites. Provisional ballots require additional paperwork and are added to the final count after Election Day.

In Denver, the next batch of mail ballots will be mailed out Friday, Scarpello said. Next week, new requests will be processed and ballots sent out daily.

Interest in mail voting has skyrocketed this year - and so has concern among those who have yet to receive a ballot. More than 1.5 million voters statewide have requested to vote this way, according to the secretary of state's office. That's more than half of active registered voters.

Arapahoe County elections staff has been fielding 900 to 1,000 phone calls a day for the last week about a variety of issues, including mail ballot requests, said Clerk and Recorder Nancy Doty.

Douglas County Clerk Jack Arrowsmith said he's seen this concern, too.

"I think there's so much surrounding this election . . . People are anxious that they get their ballot and that things happen appropriately, so we're trying to be sympathetic to that," he said.

Not all of the anxiety is about mail voting.

Susan Claudio, of Denver, showed up Monday morning at the Denver Elections headquarters on Mexico Avenue 20 minutes before voting started.

In the ballot booth, she began making her choices with the pencil she received. Then she took out a pen and drew over the pencil marks. "I didn't want anyone to erase my choices," Claudio said.

Staff writer Alan Gathright contributed to this report.