Today, November 4th, is election day, and voting will be open through 7 p.m. tonight. For some last minute voting FAQs, KGNU’s Abby O’Brien spoke via zoom with Boulder County Clerk and Recorder, Molly Fitzpatrick.
Listen below:
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Day-Of Voting FAQ with Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Molly Fitzpatrick Abby O'Brien
How can I vote today?
Today is election day, which means your ballot is due by 7 p.m. tonight. Voters should vote as soon as possible today to ensure that they don’t miss that 7 p.m. deadline, because after that, any ballots submitted will not count.
In Colorado and in Boulder County, we are incredibly fortunate because it’s easy to vote on election day. If you still have your mail-in ballot and you want to vote that, just drop that off at any 24 hour ballot drop box in Boulder County. You can find the full list of locations on your ballot envelope.
If you did not receive your ballot, or if you’re not registered to vote yet, you can pop in to any vote center in Boulder County to register to vote or to get a replacement ballot and vote then and there. There are four locations in Boulder County. We have the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder’s Office, as well as the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder campus location.
We have a location in Longmont at the Longmont hub, which is where our Clerk and Recorder’s office is. And in Lafayette, we have the Lafayette Clerk and Recorder office operating as a vote center as well.
What if I did vote by mail? How do I know whether my ballot was received?
You are welcome to call our elections office to ensure that your ballot did get here, or voters in Colorado have the opportunity to sign up for BallotTrax, and we highly encourage voters to sign up for BallotTrax to understand the full spectrum and delivery of your mail-in ballot. And so signing up for ballot tracks will allow you to see when we mail your ballot to you, when we receive it back to our office. Once we have verified your signature and when it is moved forward for tabulation and counting. So BallotTrax is an incredibly important tool and voters can find more information bouldercountyvotes.gov.
The vote by mail deadline was October 27th. What if I messed up and I put my ballot in the mail after October 27th?
The best recommendation is that voters call our office or look up the status of their ballot on govotecolorado.gov to see if we’ve received your ballot. If you do not see that we’ve received your ballot, then I would say call our front office and we’ll walk you through options. But we do need to receive all ballots by 7 p.m. on election night. The best situation is to go look at your ballot status on govotecolorado.gov and call our office if you have any questions or concerns.
What if for some reason I need a replacement ballot?
Replacement ballots are incredibly easy to get here in Boulder County and in Colorado. To get a replacement ballot at this point, we encourage voters to pop into any vote center in Boulder County to get a replacement ballot. And you can either get that ballot to go, and again, we need that ballot back by 7 p.m. tonight, election night, or you can actually just vote in person and just save the step of taking the ballot with you.
If you are going to go to a vote center, which is great, and vote on site, you can look ahead of time to see what is on the ballot. We have plenty of information at bouldercountyvotes.gov, so you know what to expect when you open up that ballot.
There’s no possible way my vote can be counted twice, right? Even if I mailed one in and I went in person?
Correct. If a voter attempts to turn in more than one ballot, we will catch it. As soon as a ballot is returned back to our office, that ballot is marked as received, and if its identity is verified, we move that ballot forward for processing.
If someone were theoretically to go into a vote center after they submitted their mail-in ballot and attempt to vote, we would be able to identify that then and there. Or alternatively, if you vote at a vote center and then you actually end up turning in your mail-in ballot later, we would be seeing that you have already voted in person.
Any attempt to vote twice is illegal. Every county in Colorado takes that very seriously and we will turn that over to law enforcement if we are in that situation.
What if I need ballot assistance of some kind?
There are multiple ways to get assistance with voting in Boulder County and in Colorado. One thing that I would love to highlight is that we have Spanish ballots in vote centers. You have to come into a vote center and you can vote in Spanish. If you are a voter that has accessibility needs such as hearing or visual challenges, you can vote on an accessible voting device, and that is an option for you.
If you have any questions or concerns or need additional assistance, our recommendation is to pop into a vote center and talk to our election judges. These are friendly people who are wanting to help their community vote, and we will support in every way that we can.
Do I have to vote for every single thing on my ballot, for my ballot to count?
You do not. Voting is not like taking a test. You do not have to fill out everything on the ballot. You can vote on only the things that you know about or that you’re excited about. Even if you just vote for one thing, that’s fine. The most important thing is that you vote.
Does voting work the same everywhere in Colorado? And where can people go to find information that is local to them?
Every county in Colorado operates in a very similar manner, and the core things about our election model are the exact same across the state. So if you are in any county in Colorado, you can drop off your ballot in any drop box in Colorado, and that county will ensure that it gets to the right place.
Go to govotecolorado.gov and you can find information and it’ll direct you to your local county clerk’s office. Or you could call your local county clerk’s office anytime today, and they will help point you in the right direction of a vote center in your hometown.
But if you cannot get back to your home county, let’s say it’s, you know, it’s 6:00 and you realize that with traffic, you’re not gonna get back to your home county to vote. You can pop into a Boulder County vote center and you can vote what is called a statewide ballot. So what that means is that you will be voting on only statewide contests. You will not have the opportunity to vote on local contest, but it is a fail safe option for voters that find themselves away from their home county late on election day.
Anything else we should know?
We love it when people vote and it’s never too late in Colorado. Again, if you are not registered to vote, you can do so today. Just pop into a vote center and we’ll help you get registered. We’ll give you a ballot right then and there, and there’s tons of information on our website, bouldercountyvotes.gov, including a sample ballot, links to candidate websites, and links to information about ballot measures.
Smaller elections typically get a little bit less, well, a lot less attention than midterms and national elections, but these really are the elections that directly influence your community. And the impacts of this, of decisions made on these local elections will really be impactful to to voters now. So we’ve got school board races, we’ve got local city council elections, local ballot measures, and two statewide ballot measures. So no matter how you vote. The most important thing is that you vote, and that you’re excited about it.
We’re happy to champion and support voters no matter if it’s their first time voting or if it’s their hundredth time voting, whatever it is. We just want you to vote and we’re here to be a resource. So call our office or go to bouldercountyvotes.gov if you have any questions.
