DENVER—Sensing the nation is at a crossroads, tens of thousands of Coloradans trooped to the polls Tuesday to add their ballots to an unprecedented 1.7 million already cast by mail or in early voting.
“It’s a very historical time, this election,” said Yvonne Hobrecht, who was voting in Lakewood.
Added Dan Shipp, also of Lakewood: “I think they’re all important, but this is a big one.”
Colorado has backed a Democratic presidential candidate only once since 1976, but this year the state’s nine electoral votes were up for grabs and were seen as potentially crucial if the national count is close.
Both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain came a-courting with campaign rallies, celebrities and phone banks in Colorado. They also saturated the airways with attack ads.
“I’ve been highly disappointed in some of the smearing that’s happened,” said schoolteacher Danielle Bayert-Stone, who cast her ballot Tuesday.
She said both candidates promised clean campaigns, “and I just felt like, ‘Well, what happened, you guys?’ I kind of wanted that to actually be true.”
Obama led in most Colorado polls, but McCain fought until the end, making a campaign stop in Grand Junction Tuesday afternoon.
“America is worth fighting for. Nothing is inevitable here,” he told thousands of people crowded into an airport hangar.
His running mate, Sarah Palin, staged a rally in Colorado Springs on Monday. Obama’s wife, Michelle, campaigned in the Denver suburb of Littleton the same day.
By the time all the mail-in ballots are received and Tuesday’s votes are cast, statewide turnout is expected to set a record, exceeding 90 percent. The 1.3 million mail ballots and 365,000 votes cast at early voting stations already accounted for 53 percent of all registered voters.
Things were smooth in the early going Tuesday, said Rich Coolidge, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office.
“There were some lines. We were expecting those as people hit the early rush times, but it sounds like those have dissipated,” he said.
The Colorado Progressive Coalition said some Spanish-speaking voters in Greeley complained that voting instructions were printed only in English and few translators were available to explain them.
Weld County Clerk and Recorder Steve Moreno said he had received no voter complaints. He said the county is not required to print instructions in Spanish but translators were posted at some polling places and others were available if needed.
Voters in some mountain towns had to brave snow and cold to get the polls, but the weather was warm and mild in most of the state’s larger cities.
Democrats set their sights on Colorado and the Rocky Mountain states last year, saying a Democratic tide was rolling across the Mountain West. In August, they held their national convention in Denver, making a commitment to pay attention to Western issues such as water and land use.
Colorado’s U.S. Senate race also got national attention as Democrat Mark Udall tried to defeat Republican Bob Schaffer and take over a seat held by Republican Wayne Allard, who is retiring.
Republican U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave was fighting for her job in the face of a tough challenge by Democrat Betsy Markey.
Also getting attention were ballot issues that would ban abortion by defining a fertilized egg as a person, ban affirmative action and eliminate some tax breaks for energy companies.
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Associated Press Writers Dan Elliott, Beth Fouhy and Don Mitchell contributed to this report.
