About the Colorado Elections Database

In 2021, the Colorado Secretary of State created this database in order to provide an easy way for the general public to access, explore, and analyze the entire electoral history of the State of Colorado. Our mission is to consolidate into one searchable platform every candidate contest and ballot question that has been reported to the Secretary of State since 1902. This requires a process of ongoing data inventory and extraction among official sources, mostly the Abstract of Votes Cast. As we look at documents further back in time, the record becomes less comprehensive. For this reason, we have created an inventory table below to help visitors understand which contests are available as of today. The “Notes” column provides some additional detail about what data limitations one may find.

Inventory

Office Type	Office	Years Available	Notes
Federal	President U.S. Senate U.S. House	1902 to present excluding 1938.	General Elections only for 1902-1910. Presidential Primaries sporadically available. Presidential elections from 1904-1940 show Presidential Electors in the source files. We have reconstructed popular votes for specific candidates based on this data.
State Executive	Governor Lt. Governor Attorney General Auditor Treasurer Superintendent of Public Instruction State Board of Education State Railroad Commissioner Regent of the University of Colorado	1902 to present excluding 1938.	Missing primary elections for 1902-1910.
State Legislative	State Senate State Representative	1902 to present excluding 1938.	Missing primary elections for 1902-1910.
State Judicial	District Attorney Supreme Court Court of Appeals District Court Juvenille Court Superior Court County Court Probate Court	1902 to present excluding 1938.	Missing primary elections for 1902-1910. Data on judicial retention contests appears in Ballot Question search.
Other	Director of Regional Transit Moffat Tunnel Commision Director of the Caddoa Reservoir and Arkansas Valley Basin Conservancy and Improvement District	1902 to present excluding 1938.
Voter Statistics		1966 to present excluding 1976.	Reported voter statistics categories are somewhat inconsistent from year to year.

William C. Thornton

Opponents (Received at least 1% of vote)