October 31, 2016 12:58 PM UTC

Get More Smarter on Halloween (October 31)

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• by: Colorado Pols

Happy Halloween, everyone! Stay safe tonight and remember: Please, please, please don’t give out pencils to trick-or-treaters. If you don’t have candy, turn off your porch light. It’s time to Get More Smarter with Colorado Pols. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example). If you are more of a visual learner, check out The Get More Smarter Show.

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

► Got ballot? If you don’t — or if you know someone who still hasn’t received a ballot — then you had better do something about it. Go to JustVoteColorado.org to start investigating the problem and contact your county clerk for answers. You can always vote at a polling place as well, whether or not you have received a mail ballot (but only if you haven’t already submitted a completed ballot). Check here for your nearest polling location. The Colorado Independent has more on mail ballots and deadlines.

► Democrats continue to outpace Republicans in early ballot returns in Colorado. As of this morning, Democrats had a lead of more than 30,000 returned ballots over Republicans.

► James Comey! Hillary Clinton’s emails! Arrghhhh!!! Politico ponders whether or not Friday’s late FBI/email story will make a difference in the 2016 election results:

Polls in some battleground states, like Colorado and New Hampshire, show large percentages of voters who aren’t committing to Clinton or Trump. But in states like North Carolina and Florida, while the percentage of undecided voters remains historically high in some polls, there are fewer third-party voters, creating less opportunity for Trump or Clinton in the closing days.

EIther way, at this stage in the campaign those are significant pools of voters who have not committed to either major-party nominee. A late-breaking bombshell like Comey’s letter threatens not just to prod voters still on the fence — it could also energize Republicans and depress Democrats at just the right moment to boost Trump and dog Clinton.

There are limits, however, to how widespread that effect might be because of early voting in some battleground states — which not only makes it easier for lower-propensity voters to participate, but also has allowed Clinton’s campaign, which is better organized in most swing states, to bank votes over the past few weeks. That’s especially true in Florida, where 3.6 million people had voted as of the latest data available Sunday; North Carolina, where 1.1 million residents had voted as of Friday morning; and Nevada, where more than 430,000 ballots had been cast as of Sunday night.

As Politico notes, Colorado has appeared to be out of reach for Donald Trump for some time now, and this story — or whatever is left of it this week — probably won’t change that outcome.

As Dave Perry writes for the Aurora Sentinel, Donald Trump is still Donald Trump.

► Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump was in Colorado last weekend, making campaign stops in Jefferson County and Greeley. At the Jefferson County Fairgrounds, state Sen. Laura Waters Woods spoke passionately about how much she believes in His Hairness; this is not a good video for Woods.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► No, you don’t have to worry about voter fraud in Colorado. Yes, we know what Donald Trump said on Saturday.

.@ColoSecofState Wayne Williams about to do 13th interview today refuting @realDonaldTrump skepticism, claims about CO ballots #copolitics

— Ernest Lee Luning (@eluning) October 31, 2016

► Democrat Morgan Carroll is riding a wave of momentum in CD-6 as she seeks to unseat Republican Rep. Mike Coffman.

Joey Bunch of the Colorado Springs Gazette takes a look at CD-6 and CD-3, the two battleground Colorado Congressional races to watch next week.

► Chelsea Clinton will be in Colorado on Tuesday and Wednesday to campaign for her mother, Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

► Out-of-state interest groups are spending big money in several Colorado races.

► The mystery is solved: Donald Trump is saying “big league,” and not “bigly.”

► Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump owes a pollster some $767,000. Good luck collecting on that one.

► Things aren’t looking good for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as the “Bridgegate” trial enters its final stages.

► Colorado was one of 10 states in 2015 to generate more than 10 percent of its electricity from wind power sources.

► Republicans have a lot of internal bleeding to fix after Election Day. 

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► How have things changed in Jefferson County since the 2015 school board recall? As Marianne Goodland of the Colorado Independent explains, new charter school applications aren’t getting rubber-stamped anymore.

ICYMI

► The Denver Broncos are halfway through the 2016 regular season with a 6-2 record.

Don’t forget to check out The Get More Smarter Show. You can also Get More Smarter by liking Colorado Pols on Facebook!