Why Colorado voters might get multiple ballots in the mail

An election worker sorts ballots at the Weld County Elections office in Greeley on June 25, 2024. (Andrew Fraieli/Colorado Newsline)

Coloradans sometimes receive ballots in the mail for voters who no longer live at their address — former tenants of an apartment, children who moved away or deceased loved ones.

Recent social media posts, some amplified by Republican figures in the state, claim the extra ballots are proof of security lapses and voter fraud in the state.

That is not true.

“The Colorado Election Model has layers of security and verification to ensure that a voter only casts their own ballot. Conspiracies are spread to distort the election process and undermine confidence,” Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Registered voters in Colorado automatically receive their ballots in the mail. County clerks will send ballots to the registered address until that voter updates their information or withdraws their registration entirely if they move out of state. Therefore, if a voter does not take those active steps to update their information, their ballot will likely continue to be sent to the address in their registration.

So, if a person moves from a Denver apartment to one in Grand Junction and does not update their voter registration, the new Denver tenant will get the person’s ballot in the mail.

If a person gets a ballot for someone who does not live at their address, they should write “Return to Sender” on the envelope and put it back in the mail, according to the office of Denver Clerk and Recorder Paul López. The office will then update the voter’s record and stop sending the person’s ballot to that address.

Voters can update their address online at the secretary of state’s website. People who have moved to another state can also withdraw their registration online or can complete a paper form and mail it to their county clerk.

Another way out-of-date registrations are removed is when a legal source, such as the United States Postal Service, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment or the Colorado Department of Corrections, notifies a clerk of a status change.

There is also the Electronic Registration Information Center, known as ERIC, which sifts through voter data submitted by member states to report inaccurate voter registration records. ERIC provides its state members reports of in-state moves, out-of-state moves, duplicate registrations and deaths. It also reports if someone votes in two different states, which is a felony.

The election denial movement has pressured nine Republican-led states to leave ERIC in recent years. Colorado is one of 25 members.

If a bad actor receives multiple ballots in the mail and attempts to vote more than once, Colorado’s signature verification system will “certainly” catch the crime, López said. Election judges compare signatures on a ballot envelope to the one on file, typically from a voter’s driver’s license. In some counties, this is done with automated machines. Some small counties do the process entirely by hand.

A signature can be rejected if two judges from different political parties agree that it doesn’t match up, and the voter is then offered an opportunity to cure their ballot within eight days of Election Day.