Your Ballot Is In the Mail

Colorado wants you to vote. In fact, our state officials want you to exercise this important, constitutional right so badly that they’ve made it easy and convenient.

Really, you have no excuse.

If you’re registered to vote in Colorado—and if you’re not, let us help you with that—your mail ballot is likely en route, if not already in your possession.

On Monday, Colorado election officials began sending paper ballots to the more than 3 million active voters across the state, and according to the Denver Post, they expect that more than half of those ballots will be returned before Election Day, November 8.

Wondering when to expect yours? If you live in the City and County of Denver, you can use the Denver Elections Division’s handy Ballot TRACE (Tracking, Reporting, And Communication Engine) to pinpoint where your ballot is at any given moment. (We checked on an editor’s ballot and found that it was printed on October 12 and mailed on Tuesday.)

Eligible voters must register by October 31 to receive a mail ballot. After you’ve made your selections, simply drop the completed ballot off at a voting center or 24-hour drop box (find a location at your county’s election website), or place it back in your mailbox with 68 cents postage (that’s two Forever Stamps).

And that’s it! Congratulations, you have performed your civic duty. You can now spend Election Day doing pretty much anything else—like drinking (responsibly, of course!), hiding under the covers, celebrating, or planning your move to Canada.

This is the first presidential election that Colorado voters are receiving mail ballots weeks before the big day. The change is due to election reform measures passed in 2013 that made voting easier for residents. Another perk of the legislation? Colorado allows on-site registration through Election Day. So if you somehow miss all the calls to register in advance—you can literally click right here and do it right now—you can still show up on November 8, vote, and then commence the drinking/hiding/celebrating/scoping out of Canadian rentals.

On the off chance it’s still not clear, what we’re trying get at here is that you have no good reason not to vote. Besides choosing our next commander in chief, Colorado voters will be deciding on a U.S. Senator, seven U.S. House seats, dozens of Colorado Senate and House representatives, and some very important ballot measures. Your input is needed.

To reward your efforts, 5280’s associate art director, Sean Parsons, has designed an “I Voted” sticker that you can share on your social media channels, print and hang in your office, or pin to your shirt as a veritable badge of honor. Because no matter how simple voting by mail is, it doesn’t come with that time-honored tradition of slapping a red-white-and-blue emblem to your shirt.

So download your very own sticker here, rock the vote, and pass it on.