Expert says Election Night could move quickly in Colorado depending on poll accuracy
DENVER — The Glenarm Recreation Center in Denver's Five Points neighborhood was busy Monday night, as one voter after the other walked up to the ballot drop box stationed in front of the building to cast their vote.
"Last minute procrastination" is how one voter framed waiting until roughly 24 hours before polls close to return her ballot.
As the country heads into the final hours of an intense presidential election, Philip Chen, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Denver, said it is too soon to know how quickly the race could be called.
"In Colorado, we should expect, I think, a fairly routine, fairly quick election. Nationwide, again, I think it's a wait-and-see. We don't really know if there's going to be a polling miss and how that polling miss will be correlated between states," said Chen.
According to Scripps News, an average of several national polls compiled by the New York Times shows 49% of voters supporting Vice President Kamala Harris and 48% of voters backing former President Donald Trump.
"A 3-point miss, which is not a huge miss in the polls, but a 3-point miss for either Harris or Trump could make for, actually, a fairly quick night," explained Chen.
According to numbers from the Colorado Secretary of State's office, fewer voters have returned their ballots so far this election compared to the same time in 2020.
"There was a huge chunk of people who didn't want to be standing in a line in 2020 for fear of transmission of COVID-19. And so we should expect that the numbers will look different than 2020," said Chen.
Civil unrest is a concern many experts have heading into the rest of the week, even after the presidential race is called.
"People are right to be concerned about that," said Chen. "We've seen an uptick in political violence, in misinformation, in the spread of conspiracy theories, and that has led to a much greater risk of political violence than we're used to seeing in U.S. elections."
Denver7 will have team coverage throughout the community, including journalists at both the Democratic and Republican Party events, plus Denver's election headquarters. We will have live coverage for several hours throughout Election Night beginning at 4 p.m.
