By admin 
Emergency voting is underway in Ouray County, where wildfires have been threatening the northeastern part of the county since Saturday.
Read more Super PAC supporting Phil Weiser’s campaign for governor gets $50,000 from dark money group
A note on the Ouray County election site points voters to myballot.coloradosos.gov, where they sign in to cast their ballots online, as first reported by the Ouray County Plaindealer.
State statute allows emergency online voting when, “Eight or fewer days before the last day of the election, the elector is unable to vote in person due to emergency conditions such as a natural disaster.”
“This provision has been in place since 2014,” said Jack Todd, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office. “We are monitoring fires in Ouray, Pueblo, Mesa and Lake counties at the moment.”
The provision was adopted following a few especially bad fire seasons and a flood in September 2013 that crippled northern Colorado.
Colorado voters can also drop their ballots in any ballot box in the state and the ballot will be mailed to the right county to be tallied.
Mesa and Lake counties, where other wildfires are raging, have not had to notify residents of emergency voting, local officials said.
“We have prepared to evacuate, but at this point, we have been able to operate and set up an emergency generator,” said Lake County Clerk and Recorder Tracey Lauritzen. “There’s four more hours to go. This fire is kind of off-mountain and not impacting travel.”
Lauritzen said she’s never been part of an election when there was a state of emergency caused by a natural disaster, but she has received an emergency ballot in the past: “I had one ballot one time from someone who was institutionalized.”
In Ouray where the Gold Mountain fire had burned more than 8,000 acres as of Tuesday morning, Chief Deputy Clerk Jonathan Arebalos said that he alerted the rest of the local government on Saturday when the fires worsened.
“Just because I’ve been in elections for a long time, I already knew that this was an option so I let my county manager, my county clerk and our communications manager know, like, hey guys, this is an option,’” Arebalos said.
“I’ve never had an election when there’s been a state of emergency,” he added. “However, if I ever got a message from a voter and they said, well, we’re having issues because there’s a tornado, or maybe they’re in an area where there’s a hurricane or they’re in the hospital, election officials in Colorado would know to let the voter know that they have this option.”
Read more Aspen Snowmass hopes to battle warmer winters by storing snow. Here’s how.