Nov 1, 2005 3:02 pm US/Mountain
Voters Cast Their Ballots In Colorado
Poll: Do you plan to or have you voted in Tuesday's election?

Raj Chohan
(CBS4) DENVER Colorado voters will continue to head to the polls Tuesday until 7 p.m. to cast ballots on several state and local issues, including Referenda C and D.

Secretary of State Gigi Dennis said about 45 percent of Colorado's registered voters will probably cast ballots based on previous off-year elections. Dennis thinks the high-profile Referenda C and D ballot questions might result in a record-breaking turnout this year.

At noon at a polling place at University and Evans, the turnout was about average 5 percent.

Alton Dillard, Denver Election Commission spokesman, said the return of mail-in and absentee ballots there was relatively high about 80 percent.

"So far we've had about 32,000 absentee ballots returned and we've also had about 5,000 people vote early, so out of about 250,000 eligible voters in Denver, we're looking at getting about 42 percent of them to the polls before they close at 7 p.m."

Some of the mail-in ballots were causing problems before Election Day. Some voters in Arapahoe County said they never received their ballots, and folds in the ballots in Boulder County were also causing concerns.

Election workers said Monday that they had a pretty good handle on the problems. The clerk's office in Boulder County was trying to make sure things went smoother than the last election when it took days to get the votes counted.

The area of Arapahoe County where some ballots weren't received include voters in Bennett and a few blocks of west Centennial, Colo.

"We're looking into it, I have no verification it's a post office situation, it could be something else, but we sent ballots out to everyone," Nancy Doty, the Arapahoe County Clerk and Recorder said.

Doty said everyone who wants to vote will be able to. Those who didn't receive a ballot should come to the clerk's office and get a ballot to vote with.

"We've encouraged them to come in and get a replacement ballot," Doty said.

The folds in the ballots in Boulder County may cause machines to miscount the votes in the critical statewide Referenda C & D issues.

"Prior to the ballots being scanned, we're actually sorting them, a bipartisan team of collection judges is looking for any under-votes in the race as well as the county 1C question because the fold runs through there in some cases too," Josh Liss, Boulder County's election coordinator said.

Election workers predicted less than 2 percent of ballots will be effected.

Boulder County said the printing errors that caused the long delays in the last election have been fixed. Officials expect a timely return when the votes are counted.

At least 18 representatives from four states will be observing Larimer County's vote centers Tuesday. Anyone can vote with proper identification and voter verification at any voting center.

Larimer County scrapped its 143 precincts and merged them into 30 vote centers in 2003 to cut costs. Adams, Weld and Otero counties also will use vote centers on Tuesday.