DENVER – Registered Colorado Democrats continued their voting surge Friday and over the weekend, again outpacing their Republican and unaffiliated counterparts in ballot submissions, according to numbers released Monday.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office updates the number of ballots returned via mail and votes made in-person each day, and breaks down the votes by which party each person who submitted a ballot is registered for.

Every ballot is categorized by each voter’s registration and does not say how a person voted. Colorado law allowed county clerks to start counting ballots on Oct. 24.

The county clerk’s offices open the ballots, check their signatures to validate them, and scan the results. However, the results will not be tallied or released until after the polls close on Nov. 8.

More than one-quarter of active registered voters (26.8 percent) have already voted in Colorado, Monday’s numbers show. Colorado saw a 71 percent voter turnout in 2012.

The numbers also show that registered Democrats submitted 62,087 ballots Friday and over the weekend, compared to 58,525 ballots from Republicans and 46,315 from unaffiliated voters.

Registered Democrats continued to build on their lead in overall ballots submitted so far, and now sit nearly 31,000 votes ahead of the number of ballots sent in by Republicans.

When comparing the overall ballot submissions so far to the number of active registered voters in each party, Democrats continue to show a lead there as well.

The 331,153 Democrats represent 32.1 percent of their voting base in the state. The 300,275 Republicans who have voted so far represent 29.5 percent of active voters registered for the party, and the 223,540 unaffiliated ballots submitted so far are approximately 19.9 percent of the number of active independent voters in Colorado.

DENVER – Wednesday’s ballot return numbers from the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office show registered Democrats again increased their lead in the number of ballots submitted so far statewide.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office updates the number of ballots returned via mail and votes made in-person each day, and breaks down the votes by which party each person who voted is registered for.

Every ballot is categorized by each voter’s registration and does not say how a person voted. Colorado law allowed county clerks to start counting ballots on Oct. 24.

The county clerk’s offices open the ballots, check their signatures to validate them, and scan the results. However, the results will not be tallied or released until after the polls close on Nov. 8.

Wednesday’s numbers show the ballots of an additional 48,839 registered Democrats were submitted Tuesday – nearly 2,000 more than registered Republicans submitted.

That brings the registered Democrats’ lead in ballot submissions to more than 25,000 over Republicans.

An additional 32,944 unaffiliated voter ballots came in to county clerk’s offices Tuesday.

After Tuesday’s numbers were counted, a total of 416,951 ballots have so far been submitted in Colorado, which represents about 13.3 of registered active voters statewide.

In the last presidential election, in 2012, Colorado had a voter turnout of 71 percent. At the same time that year, early and absentee voting showed registered Republicans had a lead over Democrats, according to Colorado polling agency Magellan Strategies.

DENVER – Former House Speaker and current Donald Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich will be in Denver Wednesday to take part in a roundtable with conservative leaders at the Independence Institute.

A news release from the Trump campaign says Gingrich will speak at the roundtable and take questions from the press “if time allows.”

The roundtable will be held Wednesday at noon at the Independence Institute, located at 727 East 16th Ave. in Denver.

Gingrich’s appearance comes as the Trump campaign is in the middle of a last-minute blitz of swing states and other states that either nationwide polls or Trump’s campaign say are in play for the Republican nominee on Nov. 8.

Trump himself campaigned in Golden and Greeley over the weekend, and Trump’s son, Eric Trump, campaigned in Colorado Springs and Lakewood last week.

Trump’s, running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, was also in Colorado Springs last Wednesday. Trump has visited Colorado six times since July 1.

DENVER – Colorado got its first look at early voting turnout numbers Monday as the Secretary of State’s Office released the first batch of total voting numbers thus far.

Every ballot is categorized by each voter’s registration and does not say how a person voted. Colorado law allowed county clerks to start counting ballots on Oct. 24.

The county clerk’s offices open the ballots, check their signatures to validate them, and scan the results. However, the results will not be tallied or released until after the polls close on Nov. 8.

As of Monday, a total of 113,932 ballots have been mailed back or returned in person. Ballots were mailed to voters beginning Monday, Oct. 17.

Of the ballots returned so far, 48,030 were from registered Democrats; 36,790 were from registered Republicans, and 27,435 were from unaffiliated voters.

Libertarians have sent in 1,054 ballots; Green Party voters have sent back 345 and American Party voters have returned 265 ballots.

The highest number of returned ballots so far have come from Arapahoe County (16,244), followed by El Paso County (15,673), Denver County (15,672) and Jefferson County (13,809).

An Oct. 3 tally of registered Colorado voters found there were a total of 3,125,319 registered active voters statewide, meaning 3.65 percent of active voters have so far cast their ballot.

The turnout in 2014, which wasn’t a presidential election year, was third nationwide at 54.5 percent.

But in the last presidential election year, 2012, voter turnout was 71 percent – also third in the nation at the time.

DENVER – Registered Democrats in Colorado continue to return their ballots in higher numbers than both registered Republicans and unaffiliated voters, according to the latest return numbers from the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office updates the number of ballots returned via mail and votes made in-person each day, and breaks down the votes by which party each person who voted is registered for.

Every ballot is categorized by each voter’s registration and does not say how a person voted. Colorado law allowed county clerks to start counting ballots on Oct. 24.

The Secretary of State’s Office opens the ballots, checks their signatures to validate them, and scans the results. However, the results will not be tallied or released until after the polls close on Nov. 8.

The numbers posted Thursday show 58,309 ballots from registered Democrats were submitted Wednesday, which is nearly 4,000 more than the 54,728 registered Republicans who submitted ballots Wednesday. Democrats now lead Republicans in the number of ballots submitted so far by nearly 29,000.

Unaffiliated voters submitted just more than 40,000 ballots Wednesday, bringing that group’s total to 143,866 ballots submitted so far.

The number of ballots submitted so far by people registered for each political party bucks voter registration numbers.

As of Oct. 3, there were 1,080,438 registered unaffiliated voters in Colorado; 998,845 registered Democrats and 992,944 Republicans registered in the state.

But of the 572,550 ballots submitted so far, 39.3 percent have been from Democrats, 34.2 percent have been from Republicans and 25.1 percent have been from unaffiliated voters.

The 572,550 ballots submitted so far represent 18.3 percent of registered active voters in Colorado. In the last presidential election, in 2012, Colorado had a voter turnout of 71 percent.

DENVER – A second lawsuit arguing Colorado’s laws forbidding people from taking pictures with their ballots is unconstitutional has been filed in federal court, and the matter is likely to be resolved before the Nov. 8 General Election.

The second suit was filed in U.S. District Court of Colorado Tuesday, and names three people as plaintiffs: Caryn Ann Harlos, who is the Communications Director of the Libertarian Party of Colorado and also serves as the region’s representative on the Libertarian National Committee; Denver voter Kiyomi Bolick and Denver voter Andrew Madson.

The suit is the second “ballot selfie” lawsuit filed in federal court in two days that challenges Colorado Revised Statute CRS §1-13-712, which forbids Coloradans from showing their completed ballots to anyone else or revealing how they voted. The full statute can be read below.

1-13-712. Disclosing or identifying vote.

(1) Except as provided in section 1-7-108, no voter shall show his ballot after it is prepared for voting to any person in such a way as to reveal its contents. No voter shall place any mark upon his ballot by means of which it can be identified as the one voted by him, and no other mark shall be placed on the ballot by any person to identify it after it has been prepared for voting.

(2) No person shall endeavor to induce any voter to show how he marked his ballot.

(3) No election official, watcher, or person shall reveal to any other person the name of any candidate for whom a voter has voted or communicate to another his opinion, belief, or impression as to how or for whom a voter has voted. (

4) Any person who violates any provision of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished as provided in section 1-13-111.

Source: L. 80: Entire article R&RE, p. 434, § 1, effective January 1, 1981.

Editor’s note: The provisions of this section are similar to provisions of several former sections as they existed prior to 1980.

Monday’s lawsuit named Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams and Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman as defendants in the suit. It was filed by Colorado Springs Rep. Owen Hill and an 18-year-old Lakewood voter.

Tuesday’s lawsuit names Williams and Coffman as defendants, but also names Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey.

It asks a federal judge to declare portions 1 and 3 of the statute unconstitutional on the basis they violate the First and Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of free speech and expression, or at the very least to issue preliminary, then permanent injunctions to keep the statute from being enforced.

At issue in the most recent lawsuit are statements from Morrisey and Williams’ offices reminding voters of the statute and that it is illegal to take pictures with their ballots.

Harlos argues that as Communications Director of the Libertarian Party, she should have the right to post a picture of her voting for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson to social media in order to promote the party she works for by the most widespread means possible.

Bolick is a Denver County voter who, according to the suit, decided who she was voting for for president after the last presidential debate. She took a picture of herself with her mail-in ballot and posted it to Facebook with her choice for president.

But afterward, an acquaintance of hers who is a prosecutor with the state Attorney General’s Office messaged her and told her doing so was illegal and that she risked prosecution by posting the picture. The suit said Bolick then removed the post, but still risks prosecution under the Colorado statute.

Likewise, Madson took a picture of himself with his filled-out ballot and sent the picture to “a few family members” and had planned to post it to social media, according to the suit. But he found out about the statute afterward and didn’t post it to social media “in order to avoid heightening his risk of prosecution,” according to the suit.

But since he had already sent the photo to others, he still technically risks prosecution.

The lawyers representing the three argue that subsection 3 of the revised statute “restricts enormous amounts of political speech that occupies a central part of our modern political discourse,” arguing that anyone who participated in an exit poll or spoke to journalists about who they voted for would also be violating the statute.

The statute stems from a law first written in 1891 that said, “A voter who shall…allow his ballot to be seen by any person, with an apparent intention of letting it be known how he is about to vote…shall be punished by a fine of not less than five nor more than one hundred dollars.”

In Monday’s lawsuit, the plaintiffs and their attorneys argued the revised statute “runs roughshod” and “cannot be properly tailored.”

Tuesday’s lawsuit cites Deputy Secretary of State Suzanne Staiert’s response to Monday’s suit, when she said in support of the statute:

“We believe the current law protects the integrity of the election and protects voters from intimidation or inducement.  In fact, given Colorado’s unique election system and rise of social networking, the prohibition may be more important in Colorado than in other states and may be more timely today than ever.”

The Secretary of State’s Office reiterated its position on the statute Wednesday, pointing back to Staiert’s statement.

The “ballot selfie” issue has created headlines nationwide in the past week, as states have differing laws regarding taking pictures of one’s ballot. Singer Justin Timberlake was in hot water after posting a selfie with his ballot after he voted in Tennessee, though laws in that state are unclear.

A report by Vox says ballot selfies are legal in 22 states and Washington, D.C., illegal in 16 states, and the law is unclear in the remaining 13 states.

It is likely the two lawsuits will be consolidated, as they both argue essentially the same thing: that the revised statute is out of line with the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

The Secretary of State’s Office’s response to Monday’s suit is due by 5 p.m. Oct. 31. A hearing on that suit is set for 9 a.m. Nov. 2 in U.S. District Court of Colorado.

Should the suits be consolidated, it’s unclear if those dates will change.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Republican vice presidential candidate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, will be back in Colorado again Wednesday evening for another campaign stop in Colorado Springs, and Donald Trump’s son, Eric, will campaign for his father in Colorado Thursday.

The Trump campaign has embarked on a last-minute blitz of classic swing states and other states that have suddenly become toss-ups ahead of the polarizing Nov. 8 General Election.

Pence will make stops in Reno, Nevada and Salt Lake City Wednesday before heading to Colorado Springs.

His event in Springs will be held at 7 p.m. at the Colorado Springs Event Center. Tickets are available here.

Eric Trump will make four stops in Colorado Thursday. He’ll start at noon at the Mt. Carmel Center of Excellence, a veterans center in Colorado Springs, then head over to the Penrose Events Center at 12:30 p.m.

After that, Eric Trump will participate in two “get out the vote” rallies: the first at 2 p.m. at the El Paso County Trump headquarters, located at 205 Sutton Lane, and the second at 6 p.m. at Colorado Christian University in Lakewood.

Expected to campaign with Eric are motivational speaker Mark Geist, state COP chairman Steve House, rancher and author Don Bendell and Veterans for Trump director Matt Miller.

The elder Trump is in Washington, D.C. Wednesday to officially open his new Trump International Hotel. He’ll then fly to North Carolina for a Wednesday evening rally in Kinston before spending Thursday campaigning in Ohio.

Trump tweeted Tuesday afternoon that he will “see [Colorado] soon,” though no official trips to Colorado are listed on his campaign website aside from Pence’s and Eric Trump’s visits.

Get your ballots in Colorado – I will see you soon — and we will win!#MakeAmericaGreatAgain pic.twitter.com/oDLvZg7MLk

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2016

The Trump campaign has campaigned extensively in Colorado in the past two months as it continues to believe it has a chance to win the state, which is a classic “purple state” that votes Democrat and Republican fairly equally.

But the most recent polls show states that are usually Republican strongholds, like Nevada, Utah and Ohio, are slipping from Trump’s grip in the final weeks of the election, according to averages from Real Clear Politics.