Denver voter turnout on higher end of recent off-year elections, with surge on election day

Well, younger Coloradans got around to it eventually. Younger than 61, that is.

staff photo
Voting booths at the Harvey Park Recreation Center. (Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite)

Voting booths at the Harvey Park Recreation Center. (Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite)

Well, younger Coloradans got around to it eventually. Younger than 61, that is. We’ll get to the younger-than-41 question in a minute.

Denver turned out about as well as can be expected in a year when all that was being asked of it was to consider a billion dollars in projects, green roofs and school board seats. This still could be the highest number of ballots returned in an off-year election. 

The Colorado Secretary of State says just over 137,000 ballots from Denver voters had been returned as of 7:16 a.m. Wednesday. That beats the 2015 coordinated elections returns reported by the Denver Elections Division, which says 124,000 Denverites voted in that election. That was the year we voted on National Western Center funding, keeping marijuana tax money and a few school board seats. (Here are the 2015 Denver coordinated election results.)

In that year’s municipal election, which occurred in May, 102,000 Denverites voted. That was all 13 city council seats and Mayor Hancock’s reelection. (Here are the 2015 Denver municipal election results, and here are the results of the four run-off elections that resulted.)

As of 7:16 a.m. Wednesday, the Colorado Secretary of State reported that of the 1.2 million ballots returned so far this year, about 529,000 came from Coloradans 61 and older, while 653,000 came from Coloradans 60 and younger.

That’s a big shift from Tuesday morning, when the Secretary of State’s numbers showed the 61-and-up crowd leading with 450,000 ballots to 419,000 from 60-and-unders.

Younger voters surged late in 2017.

(Dave Burdick/Denverite)

That’ll show me.

Still, only 243,000 ballots had been returned by voters between 18 and 40 years old. Voters aged 41-60 returned 410,000.

(Dave Burdick/Denverite)

(Dave Burdick/Denverite)

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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