Election Day Is Tomorrow in Douglas County: 132,629 Ballots Are In, Every Box and Center Closes at 7 p.m., and the Mail Will Not Get There

Through 11:59 p.m. Sunday, the Secretary of State counted 132,629 Douglas County ballots returned, and the county's own dashboard, refreshed at 9:33 this morning, had 133,863. That is 23,309 more than the county had logged two days out in the 2022 midterm and 40,402 fewer than at the same point in 2024, a presidential year. Everything still on a kitchen counter has about 30 hours left, and the only ways to get it in are a drop box, a voting center, or your own two feet.

Where the count stands

The state's Monday release, which covers ballots received through Sunday night, puts Douglas County at 28,513 Democratic ballots, 43,059 Republican, 59,564 unaffiliated and 1,493 from minor-party voters. Republicans were 30.9 percent of returns in the first release on Oct. 19 and have climbed, with one dip on Oct. 26, to 32.5 percent now. Among returned ballots, Republicans lead Democrats by 14,546. Two days out in 2024 that lead was 27,023, and in 2022 it was 17,046. Statewide the picture is reversed: of 1,599,988 ballots returned, 31.1 percent are from Democrats, 24.4 percent from Republicans and 43.1 percent from unaffiliated voters.

The county dashboard adds the geography. Parker voters had returned 34,798 ballots as of this morning, Highlands Ranch 33,881, Castle Rock 30,083, the Littleton addresses on the county's west side 12,860, Castle Pines 6,430, Lone Tree 5,707 and Larkspur 2,916. By the dashboard's split, unaffiliated voters are 45.5 percent of county returns, Republicans 32.8 and Democrats 21.7. About 1,340 of the 133,863 ballots were cast in person; the rest were mail ballots returned by box or post. The turnout tracker has the day-by-day series.

The two ways that still work

A drop box. The county's 23 boxes have been open 24 hours a day since Oct. 2, and every one of them closes at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Sign and date the envelope, seal it, and use any box in the county; you are not tied to the one nearest your address. Every box, by town, is here.

A voting center. All 23 Voter Service and Polling Centers are open today from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., including the ten that opened this morning, and all 23 are open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Any registered Douglas County voter can use any of them. A center takes a voted mail ballot, replaces one that was lost or never arrived, registers you or fixes your registration, and has an accessible voting machine. If you vote in person, the county's rule is that you surrender the mail ballot you were sent. Every address and hour is here.

Not the mail. The county's own guidance is a Forever stamp and two to nine business days for delivery, and the Secretary of State's rule is that mail ballots "must be received by the county clerk and recorder no later than 7:00 PM on Election Day," with the plain addendum that "postmarks do not count." A ballot mailed today is, in all likelihood, a ballot that will not be counted. Take it to a box instead.

What to bring, and what happens at 7

Everyone who votes in person must show identification. The state's list runs from a Colorado driver's license or ID card through passports, military and tribal IDs, Medicare cards, birth certificates and a utility bill or bank statement from the last 60 days with your name and address; the full list is on our voting locations page. You can still register at a center through Election Day, and if you try to register on Election Day without verifiable identification, the state says you vote a provisional ballot.

The 7 p.m. line is a line of arrival, not of completion. The Secretary of State's answer to the question is that voters "in line at their polling location by 7:00 PM are allowed to vote no matter how long it takes." Drop boxes are different: a box is closed at 7, and nothing goes in after that.

If your signature gets flagged

A returned ballot is not a counted ballot until the signature on the envelope is checked. If the county's judges cannot match it, or a first-time mail voter's ID copy is missing, state law requires the clerk to mail you a letter explaining the problem and how to cure it, and the deadline to fix it is 11:59 p.m. on the eighth day after Election Day. That eighth day is Nov. 11, Veterans Day, so under the state's holiday rule the deadline moves to Thursday, Nov. 12, which is the date the county's calendar carries. The state recommends BallotTrax for tracking the envelope "from sent to accepted," and the county's track-your-ballot page does the same.

What else Douglas County decides on Tuesday afternoon

The commissioners' Nov. 3 agendas, which did not exist in the county's Legistar system as of Friday morning, were posted Friday afternoon. The board sits as the Board of Equalization at 1:15 p.m. to review the referee decisions from the September and October hearings, then opens its business meeting at 1:30. The consent agenda runs 19 items, among them three weeks of vouchers, a $2,414,929.67 amendment to the Colorado Works contract, a $113,050 contract with Wheeler Lumber for a steel pedestrian bridge at Macanta Regional Park, a $215,920 subgrantee agreement with Aging Resources of Douglas County for transit and call-center service, and a request to pursue $2,875,000 in Southeast Public Improvement Metropolitan District funding for a County Line Road project. The regular agenda has five items: an intergovernmental agreement with the City of Castle Pines on a financial contribution, $1,448,871.42 in opioid abatement contracts with five local providers, $3,542,756.96 in 2026-27 agreements with River North LLC for the Highlands Ranch and Parker rideshare zones, and an agreement and a $156,156 construction contract with Three Sons Construction for the Perry Park Gateway Pond dry hydrant.

Not on any of them: the Lockheed Martin economic development incentive, matter 4998, and the standalone resolution committing the county to waive its share of business personal property tax, matter 4855. Both still read "Agenda Ready" in Legistar with an Oct. 20 agenda date, both history files are still empty, and the business meeting agenda says the next one is Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 1:30. Our Notebook has the history of the vote nobody recorded.

The 2:30 land-use hearing has four items: the use by special review for the wedding venue at 2485 S. Russellville Road near Franktown (US2025-010), a use by special review at 6685 S. State Highway 83 (US2023-011), and two zoning resolution amendments, one establishing regulations for nonfunctional turf and nonfunctional artificial turf (DR2026-001) and one on training lessons and exercise sessions for non-owned animals (DR2026-004). At 6 p.m. in Castle Rock, the Town Council takes its final votes on the RidgeView Town Center annexation, zoning and development agreement, all on the consent calendar. What the town is agreeing to is here.

Two campaign-finance dates also land this week. The final pre-election report for state candidates, covering Oct. 15 through Oct. 28, is due today; as of early afternoon, TRACER listed the Nov. 2 reports for Phil Weiser, Victor Marx and Greg Lopez as due and not yet filed, while the county's commissioner and treasurer candidates filed their Oct. 30 reports last week. We will refresh the money on every race page as the reports post. And under the Secretary of State's Oct. 2 decision in the Marx penalty case, today was the campaign's date to certify that over-limit contributions it could not refund went to charity; the hearing officer's docket shows no filing in the case since the decision itself. The fine, and what it ordered, is here.

More: the last-minute cheat sheet, every race on your ballot, the November ballot guide, and who has voted so far. We do not endorse candidates.