Questions rise over colored ballot envelopes in Douglas County elections

Colored return envelopes in Douglas County’s mail ballot system are drawing fresh questions about privacy and tampering, especially as orange, purple and green envelopes move through the county’s primary election process. Election officials say the color coding is meant to help workers handle ballots correctly, not to expose how anyone voted or create a security gap.

For the June 30 primary, Douglas County says registered Republicans will receive only the Republican primary ballot. Unaffiliated voters will receive both the Democratic and Republican ballots in the mail, and they may return only one. If two voted ballots are returned in the same envelope, none count. The county also said it has 23 secure ballot drop boxes across Douglas County for voters who do not want to use the mail.

Colorado election officials say the basic safeguards do not change with envelope color. A valid mail ballot must be signed and received by the county clerk by 7:00 p.m. on Election Day, and bipartisan election judges compare the signature on the envelope against signatures on file before the ballot is counted. The Colorado Secretary of State said county clerks could begin mailing ballots for the primary on June 8 and had to mail them by June 12.

The state also allows unaffiliated voters to request a Unity Party ballot, while Libertarian voters are excluded from voting in that party’s primary under state law. More than 1.6 million unaffiliated voters statewide can receive both major-party primary ballots, which has made Colorado’s mail system one of the most closely watched in the country.

Some of the current anxiety echoes an earlier Douglas County case. In October 2016, voters contacted the elections office after receiving two ballots in envelopes with visible differences, including label color, metered postage, a different return address and windowed barcode information. County officials explained then that one ballot was for a special district election tied to property ownership and the other was the regular county ballot.

The U.S. Postal Service has also said election mail should carry identifying markings and that color differences can help counties distinguish ballots and route them correctly if they reach the wrong office. Douglas County’s election system has faced security scrutiny before, and in February 2022 the Colorado Secretary of State’s office said it had closed an investigation into a potential breach and found no current threat after reviewing access logs and county responses.

For voters, the core protections remain straightforward: sign the envelope, return only one ballot if you are unaffiliated, and use the clerk’s office or one of the county’s drop boxes if there is any doubt about where the ballot should go.