COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- In terms of voter turnout, it was a record-setting midterm election for El Paso County.

"I think we're going to end up with at least 193,000 people voting," El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink said.  "Previous records were 177,000 in 2006, so it's been growing, and it's not just that, but the percentage of participants is also a record."

He said most voters are choosing to vote early or use the main-in option.  Only about a quarter of voters actually went to the polls on election day.  That meant the county could cut down on the number of election judges and polling places it needed on Nov. 2.

"We went from 2,200 election judges to 1,200, and from 189 polling places to 102 and saved the county about $350,000," Balink said.

For the most part, things went according to plan.  However, there were a few issues.  One of the polling places initially didn't have a poll book.

"Everything is in a bag, sealed, all the supplies," Balink said.  "What happened on Tuesday morning is that  one of the bags didn't show up, the person didn't bring it, so we reproduced the poll book in less than an hour and got it out there, so anybody that was waiting did get to vote if they wanted to, their vote was put on a provisional ballot and then as soon as the poll book showed up we could determine that yes, that person was supposed to vote.  That's what provisional ballots are for, you never turn anyone away."

El Paso's results came down later than others in the state.  Balink said that's because some of the polling places didn't call their totals in, and they won't release any numbers until they're sure everyone has voted.

"It's just not right if someone's standing in line at 7:15 or 7:30, and they hear on the radio, or get a call from their spouse saying hey, it's already decided," Balink said.  "There were four polling places that didn't call in after the last voters voted, so we started calling them, they didn't answer the cell phones we had given them.  After 9 we went downstairs where all the supplies were coming back, and by about 9:20 we knew that, guess what, they didn't answer our calls or call us back, but they'd returned all the equipment so we knew no one else was voting.  We actually put out about 55 percent of the results at 9:36 last night.  If you contrast that with last time, we didn't have anything near that before 10, so yes there was a delay but nothing out of the ordinary."

The final results will remain unofficial until they can be certified.

"This is the canvas period, we'll start that tomorrow to renew all the poll books, all the ballots cast and make sure it all reconciles," Balink said.  "We have 17 days to do that, usually we're done a couple days ahead of time, so as an estimate we may be done by Nov. 17.   At that time, we'll know whether or not we need to do any recounts."

It's an automatic recount if any of the races are closer than one half of one percent.  That may be the case for a couple of ballot issues this year.  County question 1A, which deals with medical marijuana centers, and school district question 3B, which deals with the Peyton school district, were both very close.

Election officials said the biggest complaint they've received this year deals with county question 1C.  That asks if County Commissioners should be limited to serving three consecutive terms.  It passed, but right now they're limited to serving two consecutive terms.  Some say the wording of the question is misleading because a lot of voters may have intended to shorten term limits instead of extend them.

Even though the way people vote is changing, Balink said its encouraging to see the number of people casting a ballot going up again.

"To me, the most precious First Amendment right is voting, expressing your views," Balink said.  "So when you go through the process to set up an election you hope everybody votes.  If it was 100 percent one day, wouldn't that be nice!"