About 1,300 ballots flooded into drop boxes in La Plata County over the weekend, bringing the total since ballots were mailed last Monday to 2,014, including 1,117 Democrats, 818 Republicans and 576 unaffiliated voters.
That’s about 5 percent of the county’s 34,400 active registered voters, and doesn’t factor in Monday’s mail-ins, La Plata County Clerk and Recorder Tiffany Parker said.
As early birds cast their votes, election officials do their sorting and candidates make a final push to win voters before Nov. 8, the final two weeks will be a flurry of activity.
“Drop boxes have been very, very busy – all of them,” Parker said.
Monday was the first day polling service centers in Bayfield and Durango opened for in-person voting, but those have seen less activity. As of Monday, just 11 people showed to personally perform their civic duty at the clerk and recorder’s office in Bodo Industrial Park.
Momentum behind the 2016 election has been tremendous: A watershed presidential race, starkly different choices for District 2 and District 3 county commission seats, a slew of local tax increase proposals, and a controversial statewide option for health care are just a few measures crowding this year’s ballot.
Nasty rhetoric has clogged social media sites, and parties clashed at last week’s political rally, where hundreds were corralled into the county fairgrounds to hear vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence petition a La Plata County vote for Donald Trump.
Political talk is quashed at the polls though, Parker said, reminding voters that political material is prohibited within 100 feet of a polling entrance or drop-box.
“People will come in with their pins or T-shirts and those types of things, and we say they have to put a jacket on or cover it up,” she said. “And if someone comes in talking about a particular issue or candidate, we ask them to stop. But we haven’t heard anything negative this year.”
Mostly, she said, voters are grateful for the mail-in option, and the lack of registration deadline.
“That’s been huge.”
Jean Walter, chairwoman of the county Democratic Party Executive Committee, estimated the party has deployed more than 200 volunteers who will spend the next two weeks urging voters to get to the polls.
“Colorado has a wonderful system, but it’s no good if people don’t get their ballots back in,” she said. “It’s a great time to work in a campaign when we desperately need to keep ourselves forward-looking. We can’t be mired in this negative, backwards thinking, like ‘build a wall.’”
Walter said she was pleased with Democratic enthusiasm in general throughout the election cycle. She said Democrats started the season with 200 campaign signs and have 23 left.
Republican Party Executive Committee vice chairwoman Ginny Chambers said the GOP also is spending the next two weeks making calls and knocking on doors.
“We’re working with about 75 volunteers at any given time,” she said. “They’re hitting the neighborhoods, waving signs and making calls to get the people out.”
She said she was pleased with turnout at the Pence rally, where the line of Trump supporters waiting to get in stretched to Main Avenue.
Statewide, about 3.6 percent of Colorado’s 3.1 million voters have cast their ballots, including 48,030 Democrats and 36,790 Republicans, according to the secretary of state’s records.
When it’s over on Nov. 8, to the consolation of voters and candidates alike, Parker expects close to 90 percent turnout countywide, with many voters making a day-of dash to the polls.
“In the 2014 election, we had over 1,000 use the different service centers,” she said. “We anticipate that tripling.”
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