All voters must show an approved form of identification. If you forget your identification, you still have the right to vote with a provisional ballot.
You may provide any of the following forms of identification at your precinct polling place or vote center:
- Valid Colorado driver’s license
- Valid Colorado ID card issued by the Colorado Department of Revenue
- Valid U.S. passport
- Valid ID card (with photo) issued by any agency of the federal, state, or local government
- Valid FAA pilot’s license
- Valid U.S. military ID card (with photo)
- Copy of a current utility bill, telephone bill, cable bill, bank statement, paycheck, government check, or any government document that shows the voter’s name and address
- Valid Medicare or Medicaid card
- Certified copy of a U.S. birth certificate
- Certified copy of naturalization documents
Students may provide a document from their college or university which states at least the name, date of birth, and residential address of the student voter.
Not all forms of identification will display an address. However, any address displayed on your identification must be in Colorado. The address displayed on your identification does not have to match your current address.
If you forget your identification, you still have the right to vote with a provisional ballot. This ballot contains all the same candidates and issues as a regular ballot.
A provisional ballot is a paper ballot that contains all the same candidates and issues as a regular ballot. After you have voted on your provisional ballot, it’s placed in a secrecy envelope. You must sign the ballot envelope, as you would an absentee ballot. The oath on the ballot envelope can, in limited instances, serve as an “emergency registration.”
An election judge will ensure that you’ve signed your ballot envelope. If you fail to sign your ballot envelope, your County Clerk’s office will contact you after the election and ask you to appear to sign your provisional ballot envelope.
After the election, your provisional ballot will be checked to ensure that you’re registered to vote. If you are registered to vote, your ballot will be counted just as if you had voted in any other way.
The provisional ballot envelope serves as an affidavit. When you vote with a provisional ballot, you’re required to provide two pieces of information on your provisional ballot envelope:
- Your Colorado driver’s license number OR a Department of Revenue ID number
- Your entire Social Security number OR the last four digits of your Social Security number
- If you don’t provide any of the above information, your ballot may not be counted! If you don’t provide any of this information, you still have the right to vote with a provisional ballot.
- If you vote with a provisional ballot, your vote will not be counted until your County Clerk can verify that you’re registered to vote. Your County Clerk will match information on your provisional ballot to identifying information on the master voter registration list in your county.
- This information includes the name of the voter and identifying information (such as the last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number, the voter’s driver’s license number, a Department of Revenue ID number, or a unique identifying number assigned at the time of the voter’s registration).
- The information you provide on your provisional ballot envelope will help your County Clerk verify that you’re registered to vote. If the County Clerk cannot verify that you’re registered to vote, your vote will not be counted.
If you requested an absentee ballot that you never received or if you lost or spoiled your absentee ballot (by mismarking it in any way), then you may obtain a replacement absentee ballot at your County Clerk’s office before 7:00 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 7. You may then vote with your replacement absentee ballot.
Click here to request your absentee ballot
Alternatively, you may go to your polling place and vote with a provisional ballot. At that time, you must affirm that you have not and will not vote again in the current election.
Click here to find your polling place
Be aware that your polling place may have changed. Adams, Archuleta, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, Gilpin, Larimer, Mesa, Moffat, Park, Routt, Teller, and Weld counties are now using vote centers. Click here to learn more about vote centers.
If you go to the wrong precinct, the election judge should inform you that you are at the wrong polling place. The election judge should assist you in finding your correct polling place.
If you don’t wish to go to your correct polling place, you’ll be given a provisional ballot and can vote it, but it will count ONLY for federal and statewide races. If you were sent to the wrong precinct by an election official, you should note that fact on your provisional ballot envelope. In that case, all of your votes for local races will count to the extent that you’re qualified to vote in the elections on the ballot you’re provided.
The election judge should first confirm that you are in the correct precinct. If you feel you are in the correct precinct, the election judge must ask if you attempted to register through an independent organization or a voter registration drive (“VRD”), rather than the office of the County Clerk or a motor vehicle office. (This question is not designed to disenfranchise the voter, but to provide a way for individuals to vote if they attempted to register in this manner and their registration forms were not delivered to the Clerk.)
If you attempted to register through a voter registration drive, you will be asked which organization conducted the registration drive, where you attempted to register, and approximately on what date you attempted to register. Regardless of your ability to answer these questions, you will be given a provisional ballot. However, that ballot will be counted ONLY if you provide an acceptable form of ID at the polls.
If you did not register with a VRD and your name doesn’t appear on the voting rolls, you must still be given a provisional ballot. Voting officials will assess after the election whether you were properly registered to vote in that precinct and whether your vote will count.
You must vote using the provisional ballot, and you must complete the information fields on the provisional ballot envelope and sign the affidavit on the envelope. If you fail to provide an acceptable form of ID at the polls, your provisional ballot will not be counted unless voting officials can otherwise verify that you’re registered to vote based on information available to them.
If you recently registered in person but were unable to provide a form of identification at that time, your County Clerk should have assigned you a unique identification number. When you appear at your voting place, you should bring an acceptable form of ID. You will be able to vote with a regular ballot.
If you’re in line when the polls close at 7:00 p.m. on Election Day, you must be permitted to vote, regardless of whether you have begun any part of the voting process.
Your right to vote, whether by regular ballot or by provisional ballot, may be challenged on Election Day. Challenges may only be made by election judges, poll watchers, and eligible electors of the precinct, and they must be made in writing and under oath.
Your right to vote may be challenged on the grounds that:
- You are not a U.S. citizen: In this case, an election judge will ask, “Are you a citizen of the United States?”
- You are not old enough to vote: In this case, an election judge will ask, “To the best of your knowledge and belief, are you 18 years of age or older?”
- You lack residency in the state and the precinct in which you’re attempting to vote:In this case, an election judge will ask whether:
- You have resided in Colorado and this precinct for the 30 days immediately preceding this election;
- You had a home or domicile elsewhere during that time, and, if so, whether you intended to return or remain out of the state;
- You consider Colorado to be your home; and
- You voted elsewhere in the U.S. during that period.
After answering these questions, you will be asked to sign an affidavit certifying your answers, unless the challenge has been withdrawn. You must then be given a ballot by the election judge, unless you refuse to answer the questions asked or to sign the affidavit.