Douglas County earns Vet the Vote Bronze Award for veteran poll workers

Douglas County earned a Bronze Award from Vet the Vote after veterans and military family members made up at least 15% of the county’s poll workers and election staff in the most recent election. The recognition puts a local spotlight on a practical staffing question that shapes how elections run in Castle Rock and across the county: who is trained, who shows up, and who helps voters cast and count ballots.

Vet the Vote is a national campaign built to recruit veterans and military family members into poll-worker roles. The group said it recruited more than 141,000 veterans and military family members in 2024, up from more than 63,500 in 2022. In Douglas County, that approach lines up with a local electorate that already includes a large veteran community.

County officials said in November 2024 that about 27,000 Douglas County residents, or 7.7% of the population, are veterans. A February 6, 2024 county manager report said the county’s Veterans Service Office serves roughly 20,000 veterans. That office is at 301 Wilcox Street in Castle Rock, and county leaders have also pointed to a new VA outpatient clinic planned for Prairie Hawk Drive and Dacoro Lane, with an opening expected in mid-February 2025.

Douglas County Elections already asks election-judge applicants whether they are military veterans. The county’s election-judge interest form also says student election judges must be 16 or 17 by the time of the election, and that student roles are open to juniors and seniors only. That gives the county a built-in pipeline of potential workers from veterans, students and unaffiliated voters.

The county has paired that staffing effort with public education around how elections work. At a February 2024 town hall, officials said they would explain Colorado’s secure voter-registration database, the bipartisan conduct of elections and the integrity of the mail-ballot process. Douglas County also said ballots for the March 5, 2024 Presidential Primary Election would begin mailing on February 12, 2024.

The Bronze Award places Douglas County within a broader national pattern of election offices turning to veterans to help run polling places. Vet the Vote has also recognized other counties, including SLO County Elections in California and Ada County Elections in Idaho, as local governments look for workers who can support both election operations and public confidence.