With 2 Weeks Until Election Day, Nearly 1 Million Coloradans Have Cast Ballots

DENVER (CBS4) - The flow of people was off and on at the voting center at the Blair-Caldwell research library on Welton Street in Denver Tuesday. Voters were glad to be there.

"A lot of people say I don't vote because my voice doesn't matter, but it does," said Dionza Bryant. She went inside to vote in-person. She believes it's time for change in America's politics.

"That's what I'm hopeful for. Change for when my grandson gets older, he'll have a better chance in life. Because he's only 10 months (old). So I want him to have a hope at life."

Many putting in their ballots were thinking about election security.

"We wanted to have it done early and drop it off and make sure we saw it get in the box ourselves. Make sure our vote counts," said Ryan Magee who was voting along with his wife Rhonda.

"I don't want there to be any funny business. So I feel like safer if it's in there," said Rondi Kirby.

Numbers out from the Secretary of State's office show 22.6% of Colorado's potentially eligible voters have submitted ballots so far. That's a big increase over this point prior to the 2016 election, when 8.1% of ballots were in.

As of figures out for voting Monday night, 924,735 ballots had been submitted out of potentially over four million voters. In 2016, 15 days out from the presidential election, 289,149 were in.

There's also an increase in the percentage of unaffiliated voters submitting ballots. Unaffiliated voters are Colorado's largest voting block, with more than either Republicans or Democrats. Their returns were up nine percentage points over this point in the 2016 election.

Republicans as a percentage are returning ballots more slowly than last time with 23% having put ballots in so far. At this point in 2016, it was 33%.