How Colorado keeps voter rolls accurate

Keeping voter rolls accurate is important to ensuring that only those eligible to vote can vote. Colorado election officials follow federal and state laws and rule for ensuring voter lists are updated on a continual and perpetual basis. Here’s why:

Want to take a deeper dive into the specifics? Read on.

 Here’s a detailed look at the various steps taken to keep our voter rolls accurate:

Active, inactive, and canceled voter records

State and federal laws determine when and how election officials may change or cancel voter registrations in Colorado. The purpose of these laws is to ensure that eligible voters stay on the rolls while also ensuring that ineligible individuals and voters with out-of-date information don’t get a ballot. To facilitate this, the law divides voter records into three categories: Active, Inactive, and Canceled. A short explanation of each category will provide helpful context as you read about what election officials do to keep the voter rolls clean.

Active records: If a voter’s record is in Active status, it means the County Clerk has all the information we need from the voter and the information is up to date. An Active voter in Colorado will automatically receive a ballot in the mail without having to take any extra steps.

Inactive records: If a voter’s record is in Inactive status, it means that, through one or more of the processes described below, the County Clerk has learned that some portion of the voter’s information (usually their address) is out of date or needs confirmation. Although the County Clerk doesn’t have enough information to cancel the voter’s record, the Clerk requires action from the voter before they can get a ballot in the mail or vote in person. Therefore, a voter in Inactive status will not receive a ballot in the mail or be allowed to vote in person until they provide updated information to the County Clerk.

Canceled records: If a person becomes ineligible to vote under Colorado or federal law, the County Clerk will cancel the person’s voter registration. A person in Canceled status is not entitled to vote. A Canceled voter may regain their eligibility to vote, but they will not receive a ballot in the mail or be able to vote in person until they confirm their eligibility to the County Clerk and re-register to vote.

Minimum matching criteria

Before election officials may change or cancel a voter’s record, state and federal law require officials to confirm that they have identified the correct voter’s record. This means that in most circumstances described below, election officials may only take action on a voter’s record if the new information they have received contains minimum matching criteria, which includes the person’s name, date of birth, driver’s license number, social security number, and/or address.

Updated every day

Colorado Department of Corrections provides a list of people who are currently incarcerated serving a felony sentence either within a Colorado or federal facility. Colorado’s voting system then compares this list to voter records to identify anyone whose status changed to “felony incarcerated” in the previous 24 hours. This information is used to cancel the voter’s record when minimum matching criteria is met.  Minimum matching criteria include name, date of birth, driver’s license number, Social Security number, and/or address.

The state provides counties with a daily list of possible duplicate voter records. The county then consolidates those records. This can happen when a person uses a variation on their name, changes their name, or when there’s a data entry error making it difficult to know that a record already exists for that voter. Colorado’s voting system puts out routine reports indicating to counties that two voter files should be merged into a single file.

Automatic voter registration occurs daily when a U.S. citizen receives or updates their Colorado driver’s license or Colorado identification card. Only eligible voters are automatically registered or have their voter registration record updated with accurate, up-to-date information.

Information sent from other states showing new registrants with former addresses in Colorado may be used to cancel a voter’s Colorado voter registration if minimum matching criteria is met which includes name, date of birth, driver’s license number, Social Security number, and/or address. Each state is required to provide notice to a voter’s previous state indicating that they have registered to vote in the new state. Federal law allows the county to immediately cancel a voter with this type of notice.

Under the provisions of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the Colorado voter registration system uses the driver’s license and social security databases to automatically verify every identification number provided by a voter.

Obituaries, death certificates, or other information provided with an affidavit from family members that a voter has passed away may be used to cancel a Colorado voter registration if minimum matching criteria are met. These criteria include name, date of birth, driver’s license number, Social Security number, and/or address.

Updated every month

When a person updates their residential or mailing address with the United States Postal Service that information is provided by State Election Officials as a list to counties. Voters on that list who have addresses outside of Colorado will be made inactive and sent correspondence from the county to verify their current address.

The National Election Registration Information Center (ERIC) compares voter registration and driver’s license records from member states to the data of other states, along with death data from the Social Security Administration, and national change of address (NCOA) data from the United States Postal Service to provide member states with reports detailing people who may have moved, died, who may be registered to vote in more than one state (The SOS provides this data monthly as well). Further, after each General Election, states use the ERIC comparison to identify voters who may have voted multiple times in the same election.

Colorado Department of Health & Environment (CDPHE) provides a list of deaths that happened 1) within Colorado or 2) to a Coloradan living outside the state monthly and more frequently leading up to an election. Colorado’s voting system then compares this list to voter records to see if any registered voters died over the month. This information can be used to cancel the voter’s record when minimum matching criteria are met. Minimum matching criteria include name, date of birth, driver’s license number, Social Security number, and/or address.

The federal American Association of Motor Vehicles Administrators (AAMVA) process looks for voter registrations in the Colorado Voter Registration Database that do not have a driver’s license on file.  Using the social security number, the system looks for the person’s driver’s license or Colorado ID to add to the voter’s record.

Updated after each election

Under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), after each election, voter records that are inactive for returned/undeliverable mail ballots are sent a confirmation card by forwardable mail. There are three possible outcomes to this mailing:

1.     If the voter returns the confirmation card and informs a county they still live at the same address, their record reverts to active.

2.     If the voter returns the confirmation card and informs a county, they have moved:

• To an address in the same county, the county will update their voter registration with the new address.

• To an address in a different county in Colorado, the voter’s registration will be transferred to the new county.

• To a new address out of state, their voter registration record in Colorado will be canceled and their new home state will be notified.

3.   If the voter does not return the confirmation card and fails to vote in any election between when the notice is issued and the next two general elections, without contacting the county election office, their voter registration will be canceled.

• Same-day registration is the policy of treating every day of the year as a voter registration day, instead of stopping voter registration 29 or fewer days before an election. In practice, a state with same-day voter registration allows voters to register to vote or update their existing registration in the days before an election, including election day. This can be especially helpful for those voters who have moved in the days or weeks before election day. It allows these voters to provide updated address information at the time of voting.  Nearly two-thirds of all registrations that occur during early voting or on election day are voters updating their existing voter registration record. In the 2020 General Election, approximately 36,000 voters updated their voter registration when voting in person at a Colorado polling place, while 22,000 voters registered to vote and voted during that same period.