A total of 1,813 Pitkin County voters have cast ballots in this fall’s all mail-in election and turnout is on track to exceed prior off-year elections. The county issued a total of 10,720 ballots for this year’s election. That included a late addition of about 2,500 “inactive” voters, earlier this month, who were to be excluded, said elections manager Dwight Shellman.
The clerk’s office began receiving high volumes of ballots in the mail on Oct. 17. Wednesday was the most ballots the county had received yet in a single day so far, with 296, Shellman reported. Turnout is typically low in odd-numbered election years, like 2011, in which there are no state or national candidates on the ballot. Over the last decade, those contests have averaged about 3,200 ballots. Before ballots began coming in this year, Shellman said he was expecting between 3,500 and 4,500. “We would be over the moon if we hit the high end of that,” he said.
Potential turnout received its biggest boost when the clerk decided to mail ballots to 2,500 “inactive” voters — those who had not participated in the last election but are registered to vote. Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler had opposed sending ballots to those people, arguing it is illegal, but dropped his opposition after a judge’s ruling.
Full Article: All-mail election turnout could exceed past off-year contests | Aspen Daily News Online.