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Colo. vote counting expected to be late
Rocky Mountain News
But for the rest of count, it's anyone's guess. And that means most Coloradans could be fast asleep before the final, unofficial results are in early Wednesday - if all goes well.
Election workers already have processed more than 1.2 million mail ballots and 365,000 votes cast at early-voting sites statewide. That's about half of the state's registered voters.
Those results are expected to be put up on most large county Web sites just after 7 p.m. today. But the rest of the counting could take many more hours.
First, hundreds of thousands of mail ballots could be dropped off today at election offices. Mail ballots take longer to count because election workers must go through multiple steps - including signature checks, unfolding and sorting.
Second, many counties have reduced the use of electronic voting machines that produce almost instantaneous counts and have gone to paper ballots.
"Do not expect results before midnight," Denver Clerk and Recorder Stephanie O'Malley said Monday. The counting will extend "well into the morning."
This year, eight counties - including Arapahoe, Weld and Mesa - will deploy only electronic terminals, although paper ballots will be on hand in case of a machine malfunction or long lines. In these counties, memory cards from the terminals will be taken to election headquarters and loaded into a computer for final tallying.
Results should be posted within a few hours after the polls close.
All the other counties are offering paper ballots - either as their primary voting method or as an alternative to electronic voting.
In Jefferson County, voters will fill out paper ballots and put them into scanning machines. At the end of the day, memory cards will be taken from the scanners to the central office and connected to a computer for counting.
In Denver, ballots will be taken throughout the day to the main office, where they will be run through large machines called "central count scanners."
Unlike last year when Denver called in police to help process ballots, it has about three times the number of election judges to make the counting go faster.
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