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November 7, 2019

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Mircalla Wozniak, Communications Specialist, 303.413.7766

Post-Election Unofficial Preliminary Results

Next unofficial results update will be released after 8-day cure and military ballots due date


Boulder County, Colo. – The Boulder County Elections Division has finished tallying results for 112,411 ballots for the 2019 Coordinated Election and has posted preliminary unofficial results on our website at www.BoulderCountyVotes.org.

As a normal part of the election process, there are remaining categories of ballots left to be counted after the 8th day following the election. We know for certain that there is a group of ballots that will get counted and a secondary group of ballots of which only some will get counted. These categories are outlined below.

Here are the categories of ballots we know will count. These ballots have been signature verified and the voter has been given vote credit, but their ballot has not yet been counted, nor have the votes been added to our election results. This will happen at the end of the 8-day period, sometime on Thursday, November 14. These are:

  • 837 Reserve Ballots – These ballots are held to protect voter anonymity for the below categories of ballots. We reserve three ballots per precinct per district style.
  • 48 Additional “Limit” Ballots – Ballots in a particular precinct/district style that have no other ballots to be processed with by the end of the election, we hold these ballots for anonymity purposes and they are processed with the reserve ballots.
  • 1,081 Manual Process Ballots – These are ballots that typically came in during the last 24-hours and likely had one of the following issues: replacement ballot envelope (can’t go through our sorting machine); dirty/food stained or badly folded ballot (needs duplication to run through the scanners); or poorly marked ballots that need election judges to review voter intent.
  • 500 “VIPs” (Voter Information Protection) Ballots – These are ballots from voters who reside in precincts that have few voters with the same ballot style. Processing these ballots together helps protect voter anonymity.

The total for these categories is 2,466 ballots.

Then, there are categories of ballots that have the potential to be counted after the end of the 8th day. They are:

  • 493 Mail ballots that have the potential to be "cured" by voters – These are ballots where one or more of the following verification steps were incomplete: the signature on the envelope did not match, the signature on the envelope was forgotten, or an ID was required and not provided. These voters will be mailed a letter no later than Thursday, November 7 (and sent an email if an email address is on their voter registration record) informing them of the status of their ballot. Additionally, they should have already received a message if they are signed up for our Ballot Track system. By law, these voters have until Wednesday, November 13 to address these items (8th day following the election).
  • 2580 UOCAVA military and overseas voter mail ballots (outstanding number of ballots that could be returned via mail) – Most military and overseas voters who intend to vote return their ballot by Election Day. However, by law, UOCAVA mail ballots have until 8 days after the election to be received. Historically, we have received less than 5% back from this category for a Coordinated Election.
  • 2 UOCAVA military and overseas electronic ballots needing paperwork – These are ballots from military/overseas voters that were transmitted on Election Day, however, they are missing part of their identifying, required paperwork. They have until the end of the 8th day to submit the complete paperwork in order for us to count their ballot.
  • 25 (Estimate) Ballots returned to another county – An unknown quantity of ballots that may have been returned by the election deadline to another county clerk’s office and will be transferred to our office within a few days – typically less than 25 ballots. Assuming the signatures on these mail ballots are verified, these ballots will be added to the preliminary results as well.
  • 3 Provisional Ballots – Ballots that were voted at a Voter Service Center when a voter was in the wrong county, could not provide identification, etc.

Thus, from the above categories, there are upwards of an additional 3,103 ballots that may be added to the preliminary election results at the end of the 8-day statutory window. Those results will be added to the unofficial results the on Thursday, November 14 along with 2,466 ballots that we know will be counted, highlighted above.

Note that ballot processing during the end stages of an election is a very manual process and ballots can move from one status category to another. Many of these figures come from hand counts and are subject to change.

If a voter would like to check to confirm that we received and processed their mail ballot, they can check online at www.BoulderCountyVotes.org under Ballot Track. While checking on the status of their mail ballot, the Elections Division encourages all voters to include a notification method for the system for future elections.

Tentative summary schedule for remaining results postings:

Date