After a strong start in October, the pace of Colorado ballot returns slackened in the days leading up to Election Day this week, putting 2025 on pace for a middle-of-the-road turnout figure for an off-year election.

As of 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, elections officials had counted a statewide total of 1,729,345 ballots, according to data released by the Colorado secretary of state’s office. That’s a slightly higher raw ballot total than had been counted at the same point in 2023 — but it represents 41.8 percent of the state’s 4.1 million active registered voters, a slight dip from the 43.5 percent turnout recorded two years ago.

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Turnout will likely rise slightly in the coming days as ballots from military and overseas voters are added to the total, and as ballots are “cured” after being rejected because of signature discrepancies or other issues.

The 2025 election was the sixth off-year election held using the Colorado’s universal mail ballot system, which it adopted in 2014. As usual, the overwhelming majority of Colorado voters have opted to return their ballots through the mail or a drop box, with just over 30,000 voters — 1.7 percent of the total — casting a ballot in-person.

Colorado holds coordinated elections in odd-numbered years to elect candidates for certain school boards, municipal offices and other local races, often alongside one or more statewide ballot issues. They are consistently the state’s lowest-turnout elections, averaging just over 41 percent of active voters during the last decade, roughly half of the average turnout in midterms and presidential election years.

Older Colorado voters made up the majority of the electorate in 2025, with voters aged 55 and over accounting for over 54 percent of all ballot returns, compared to 15 percent from voters aged 18 to 34. Women were significantly more likely to vote this year, returning 910,498 ballots as compared the 809,846 returned by men.

Registered Democrats returned more ballots (521,362) than registered Republicans (443,942), but both trail behind the 741,816 ballots returned by unaffiliated voters, who make up half of all registered voters in the state.

‘Curing’ ballots

On average, about 1 percent to 2 percent of mail ballots in each election in Colorado are rejected because of a verification issue. Voters whose ballots are rejected should receive a notification from the state’s BallotTrax system or a letter from their county elections office, which will include the steps they need to take to “cure” the problem and ensure their ballot is counted.

Nov. 12 is the deadline for curing a ballot. Voters can also use the state’s Colorado BallotCure system, previously known as TXT2Cure, by visiting GoVoteColorado.gov.

“Every voter who casts a ballot can ensure it is counted, even if it was first held for an ID or signature issue,” Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in a statement. “Colorado BallotCure gives Coloradans an additional tool to fix their ballot using a computer or smartphone.”