At least two dozen people in Pitkin County have already voted in the Nov. 4 election. They’re done: No more decisions, no more commercials and no more debates for them.
Did they receive special treatment?
No, they requested a ballot. So Pitkin County Clerk Janice Vos Caudill sent them one. And they’ve marked it up and mailed it back to the clerk’s office.
Done, done and done.
That first wave of early local voters in the 2008 presidential election — called by many the most important in a generation — is likely to be followed soon by a flood of ballots from other citizens also voting through the mail.
Vos Caudill and her staff at the county clerk’s office have received, to date, requests for 3,202 “mail-in” — or absentee — ballots for this year’s election, which is a new county record.
On Monday, workers in the clerk’s office mailed 2,477 ballots to those who have requested a mail-in ballot, and they will be sending more ballots right up until Oct. 31.
Voting by mail — which allows voters to ponder a long list of ballot questions in our easy chairs or at our favorite watering holes — is becoming increasingly popular in the county and around the state.
In 2006, the county received 1,335 mail-in ballots. In 2004, they received 2,009 mail-in ballots. In 2000, only 1,050 people voted by mail in Pitkin County.
It’s not too late to get in on the trend.
The clerk’s office will accept requests for mail-in ballots until Oct. 28.
And from Oct. 29-31, citizens can walk into the clerk’s office, request a mail-in ballot, go somewhere conducive to contemplation, do their voting, and return their ballots to the clerk’s office either in person or by mail.
As long as their ballots are back to the clerk’s office by 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 4, their votes will be counted.
After a mail-in ballot lands in the clerk’s office, election judges check to see that the signature on the ballot matches the signature on the mail-in ballot request form.
“Parents should not sign their college students’ ballots, and people should not sign their spouse’s ballot,” Vos Caudill said.
If the signatures match up, the mail-in ballots will be fed into a machine that tallies the votes.
The mail-in ballots don’t necessarily relieve the workload in the clerk’s office, where 12-hour days are now commonplace.
“It is just a shift in the workload,” said Vos Caudill, noting that it takes time to process the mail-in ballot request forms, send out the ballots, and then process the ballots when they are returned.
Vos Caudill requests that voters check the status of their mail-in ballots online through the Colorado Secretary of State’s Web site, rather than call the clerk’s office and ask about their mail-in ballots.
And while some staff members in the clerk’s office are busy tallying mail-in ballots, others are still processing voter registration applications.
The deadline to register to vote was Monday, Oct. 6. As of Thursday afternoon, there were 13,302 registered voters in the county, up from 13,150 one week ago.
Of the 989 voters who have registered this year and have been entered into the county’s computer system, 437 are Democrats, 117 are Republicans, 419 are unaffiliated and 16 are members of other parties.
Overall, Pitkin County is dominated by voters who prefer to run without a party brand.
There are 5,821 unaffiliated voters in the county. There are 4,704 Democrats, 2,664 Republicans and 112 members of other parties.
And all registered voters have one other option for casting their votes early: Walk-in voting starts in 10 days, on Oct. 20.
bgs@aspendailynews.com
