Colorado has an interesting three stage vote:
First, you can be a permanent or election only mail in ballot. They started going out Oct 3 and can be requested up to October 28.
Second, early voting starts today. That runs til October 31.
Third, you can go to the polls Nov. 4
Colorado Dems are running Early Voter rallies today.
more below:
Senator Ken Salazar is here in Colorado Springs at the Colorado College campus to rally early voting. He has a number of other officials with him. My candidate Anna Lord for Colo HD 21 will be there also.
This rally is also very important because the El Paso County clerk has agressively attempted to discourage students at the college from voting. The Colorado Independent had a great article GOP Backed student voter disenfranchisement on the El Paso County Clerks efforts to suppress Colorado College voters (the first college to offer a degree in nuclear disarmament).
This rally will include a march over to the polls - I would like to see the local county clerk step in front of a sitting US Senator. That would make great TV. What a great way to fight vote suppression - take a block of potential suppressed voters to the polls with a big dog by their side. Anyone else doing this in other states with early voting?
And early voting is huge in Colorado. Almost 50% of registered voters have already requested mail in ballots - heck even the NYT articles caught this fact. We are looking like over 75% of the vote will be in by Nov 3.
From personal knowledge, I can tell you that mail in ballot requests have exceeded 75% of the turnout in Anna's district in 2006. We expect turnout to be more than 25% higher than 2006 - with a vast majority of that vote coming from Independents.
Anyway, keep an eye out, Colorado Early Voting Rallies will continue for the next ten days.