Republican state Rep. Gabe Evans had a one percentage point lead over Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo Saturday night in Colorado’s 8th congressional districtBut the winner of the race, which could determine whether the Republican Party has unified control over the federal government, likely won’t be clear until Thursday.

That’s because there are thousands of ballots in the district that require “correction,” which is when a voter must provide identification, add a missing signature to their ballot, or explain why their signature doesn’t match what’s on record with the state. before voting. can be counted.

The deadline for voters to correct their ballots is Wednesday, and both Democrats and Republicans are flooding the district to make sure every vote is counted. County clerks have until Thursday to finish counting votes cast in the 2024 election.

Adams County Clerk Josh Zygielbaum, a Democrat, said Saturday morning that there were 4,262 8th District ballots in his county that needed to be rectified before they could be counted.

As of Friday night in Weld County, there were about 3,200 ballots that needed to be reviewed countywide, meaning not all of them may have been cast in the 8th District race.

Because the list of voters who must correct their ballots is public, each county will protect voter privacy by holding between 500 and 1,000 regular ballots to mix with the revised ones when they are counted on Thursday. That will help anonymize the ballots that were curated.

All other ballots in Weld County have been counted. In Adams County, Zygielbaum said Saturday night that “there are a few thousand left to scan.”

Zygielbaum said Saturday morning that the county had about 17,000 more votes from the 8th District to count. The results of 12,000 of them were published at 7 pm on Saturday.

Caraveo was leading the 8th District vote in Adams County 103,873-82,512 Saturday night, while Evans was winning the 8th District vote in Weld County 68,540-46,458.

There is a small portion of Larimer County that is also located in the district. Evans was winning that share Saturday night, 7,238-5,757.

In total, Saturday night’s vote was 158,290 for Evans and 156,088 for Caraveo, or Evans with 49% of the votes to Caraveo’s 48%. Evans led by 2,202 votes.

Caraveo, the first Latina elected to Congress in Colorado, is seeking a second term. Evans, an Army veteran and former police officer, is also Latino.

republicans needed to win six more elections to the United States House of Representatives starting Saturday afternoon to maintain their majority in the lower house of Congress in Washington, DC. They have already gained control of the US Senate and Republican Donald Trump will be president.

Both Democrats and Republicans are likely to launch a mad dash to the 8th District to persuade voters to get their votes back. The list of voters whose ballots need to be sanitized is public, so those people will be inundated with phone calls and knocks on their doors.

Local election officials are supposed to inform voters if their votes need to be corrected. Voters can also check if their ballot has been accepted by looking up your voter registration at the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office and clicking on “ballot information.”

If your ballot needs to be corrected, you can find out how to do so through your county clerk’s office or by consulting these state resources:

Colorado allows voters to curate their ballots via text message. they must get your voter identification number and then text “COLORADO” to 28683.

While the delay in vote counting in District 8 is frustrating to some observers, it is not unusual for close races in Colorado to take more than a week to be decided as each vote is counted.

The race in Colorado’s 8th district was focused largely on immigration. Approximately 40% of the district’s population is Latino. Both candidates promised to be tough on illegal border crossings but disagreed on how to enforce the country’s immigration laws.

Abortion also played a central role in the conflict, with Caraveo attacking Evans for his unclear and apparently contradictory statements on the subject. Meanwhile, Evans and Republicans attacked Caraveo for her vote as a state legislator. criminalize fentanyl. publishing an avalanche of ads criticizing that decision.

Almost 29 million dollars was spent by super PACs in the race, most of it benefiting Caraveo. That dwarfs the $16.6 million spent by super PACs in the district in 2022, which was the first election in the district created during Colorado’s 2021 redistricting process.

Other Colorado races that won’t be determined until next week

Caraveo held a lead over Evans until Friday night, when election officials in Weld County, a Republican stronghold, threw out the results of about 27,000 ballots he had tabulated that day.

That data dump also affected two state house elections.

In House District 50, centered in Greeley, Republican Ryan Gonzalez took the lead over Democratic state Rep. Mary Young. She accepted as a result.

“Serving my community these past five years has been one of the greatest honors of my life, and I am proud of the significant legislative accomplishments I was able to accomplish,” Young said in a written statement. “Unfortunately, we did not prevail in these close elections. I want to congratulate Ryan González and wish him luck in his first legislative session.”

In House District 19, which straddles the Weld-Boulder county line, former state Rep. Dan Woog, a Republican from Erie, took a lead over Democrat Jillaire McMillan, a first-time candidate . The district is currently represented by Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Parenti, who did not run for re-election.

The Associated Press had actually called the race on Friday for McMillan, but the news outlet, which The Colorado Sun relies on for election projections, rescinded the call when Woog took the lead.

Woog led by 208 votes Saturday afternoon.

The outcome of the race will not be clear until Thursday, after ballot review is completed in Weld and Boulder counties. Boulder County Clerk Molly Fitzpatrick, a Democrat, estimated there are approximately 500 House District 19 ballots that do not need to be cured but still need to be counted, in addition to the 400 ballots in the district pending cure. There are also an unknown number of damaged ballots or ballots from military or foreign voters across the county that have yet to be tabulated.

Finally, in House District 16 in Colorado Springs, Democratic state Rep. Stephanie Vigil trailed her Republican challenger, Rebecca Keltie, by just 21 votes Saturday night.

The outcome of that race is also unlikely to be known until Thursday, given the small margin and the ballots that remain to be resolved.
If McMillan and Vigil lose, Democrats lose their supermajority in the Colorado House of Representativeswhich they have had for two years. Losing the supermajority would require Democrats to work with Republicans to bring constitutional amendments to a vote and override any vetoes by Gov. Jared Polis.