Colorado’s voter turnout tops 2012 presidential election; Republicans double ballot submission lead

DENVER – Voter turnout in Colorado has already topped turnout in the 2012 presidential election, and Republicans doubled their voting lead over Democrats in the first half of Tuesday.

Unaffiliated and Republican voters in Colorado continued their strong turnout during Election Day, according to numbers released Tuesday afternoon by the Secretary of State’s Office.

The office first released numbers calculated through Monday early on Tuesday morning. But it released new tallies Tuesday afternoon, which calculate ballot submissions by party.

The latest tally was as of 2:11 p.m. and shows that 73,551 unaffiliated ballots were either dropped off or filled out in person Tuesday. Republicans have so far turned in 64,406 ballots and Democrats have so far turned in 47,033 ballots Tuesday.

The latest figures mean the Republican vote gap grew to 36,000 through the first half of Tuesday. That’s more than double the close-to 18,000 gap in this morning’s data.

Voter turnout in Colorado has already bested the 2012 presidential election, which saw 71 percent turnout.

When the 2,404,846 votes are compared with the last tally of active registered voters, the count represents 73.5 percent voter turnout.

Turnout among Republicans has topped 80 percent.