• Original Reporting
  • References

The Trust Project

Original Reporting This article contains firsthand information gathered by reporters. This includes directly interviewing sources and analyzing primary source documents.
References This article includes a list of source material, including documents and people, so you can follow the story further.
An illustration of a capitol building with stars overhead.
(Provided by Gigafact.)

Colorado passed the Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act in 2013, which required ballots to be mailed to every registered voter for all elections. 

The law also continued to require counties to accommodate early in-person voting and on election day, shortened state residency requirements for voter registration to 22 days from 30 days, allowed for same-day registration and voting on election days and eliminated assigned polling places, replacing them with more accessible county voter service and polling centers.

The act was signed into law May 10, 2013, by then-Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Seven other states and the District of Columbia allow all elections to be conducted by mail including California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington. Nebraska and North Dakota, meanwhile, allow counties to opt into conducting elections by mail. Thirteen other states allow mail elections in more limited forms.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

See full source list below.

Fact Brief logo

The Colorado Sun partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-size fact-checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

References:

Table 18: States with mostly-mail elections, National Conference of State Legislators, Jan. 28, 2024. Source link.

Colorado Voting Reforms: Early Results, The Pew Charitable Trusts, March 2016. Source link.

House Bill 13-1303, Colorado General Assembly, May 10, 2013. Source link.

Type of Story: Fact-Check

Checks a specific statement or set of statements asserted as fact.

Justin George is a 1995 graduate of Columbine High School. He has worked as a reporter at six news organizations including the Boulder Daily Camera, the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post. Email him at justin@coloradosun.com