If you are reading this on Tuesday, November 4, 2025, and you have not yet voted, you have until 7pm to submit your ballot, or mark a ballot at one of two local polling stations.
This assumes you are registered to vote, or are eligible to register to vote. In other words, that you’re a U.S. citizen, age 18 or older, and have lived in Archuleta County for at least 22 days. Even if you haven’t yet registered to vote, you can do so up until 7pm at the Archuleta County Election Office, 305 Village Dr. adjacent to the City Market shopping center. (Formerly the Wyndham sales office.)
I found the following map, indicating the location of the Election Office, on a website called Vote411.org which apparently can provide directions to the nearest polling place for every home address in the U.S.
That website is sponsored by several organizations, including the American Library Association, the Girl Scouts, the Interfaith Alliance, the sorority Delta Sigma Theta, and Macys Inc.
You can also submit your mail ballot, or mark a ballot, today at the Pagosa Lakes Property Owners Association (PLPOA) Clubhouse, 230 Port Ave.
Alternatively, you can deposit your mail ballot prior to 7pm in the drop box located at Town Hall, 551 Hot Springs Blvd. or in the drop box at the Tara Community Center, 333 Milton Lane, in Arboles.
Do not mail your ballot today. It won’t arrive in time. That’s not intended as criticism of the U.S. Postal, just a simple fact.
You cannot vote if you are currently serving a term of imprisonment for a felony conviction. Hopefully, you are not.
According to an article we shared yesterday — written by Colorado Newsline reporter Chase Woodruff — Colorado is experiencing a relatively high turnout, considering the general lack of exciting contests on the ballot in some communities.
Here in Archuleta County, voters living in the unincorporated county have only two ballot measures to vote on: Proposition LL and Proposition MM.
Within the town limits, voters can also mark ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ on Measure 2A, a proposal to create a municipal sales tax, also within the town limits. I discussed that measure in a previous editorial.. A campaign committee (of which I am a member) has spent thousands of donated dollars promoting a ‘Yes’ vote.
Certain Colorado communities are voting today for School Board condidates. But Archuleta School District (ASD) had only three candidates sign up to run for three seats, so the election was canceled. All three candidates are incumbents. That saved the School District a few thousand dollars in election costs. It also suggests that, generally speaking, the status quo will continue at ASD.
Ballot measures LL and MM are related to free school lunches.
Propositions LL and MM were referred to the ballot by the Colorado General Assembly earlier this year. Together, they aim to shore up funding for the ‘Healthy School Meals For All’ program, which was authorized by Colorado voters in 2022 but has exceeded cost projections in its first years of operation.
Without additional funding, program administrators have said they will have to take steps to restrict eligibility to only low-income students and schools.
Additional efforts to purchase locally-grown produce, increase wages for cafeteria workers and offset federal food stamp cuts would also go without funding.
Some voters may wonder why…
1. We would choose to provide free lunches to everyone — including children from wealthy families — rather than focusing our efforts on children who are most likely to experience food insecurity; and
2. Why the ‘Healthy School Meals for All’ program ran over budget in its first year of operation; and
3. Whether the ‘Healthy School Meals’ are actually ‘healthy’.
‘Keep Kids Fed Colorado’, an issue committee registered in support of Propositions LL and MM, has reported $152,000 in contributions, mostly from the nonprofit Hunger Free Colorado. The campaign touts a long list of endorsements from organizations including Children’s Hospital Colorado, Great Education Colorado, Mi Familia Vota, Rocky Mountain Farmers Union and Save the Children Action Network.
During a special legislative session in August, Colorado lawmakers also tweaked Proposition MM to allow the additional revenue to be spent on broader efforts to reduce food insecurity, once the Healthy School Meals For All program’s costs are covered. That would help the state partially offset the impact — estimated at up to $170 million annually — of reduced funding and higher administrative costs for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as a result of cuts passed by congressional Republicans in July.
Typically, the Archuleta County Election Office posts unofficial results in the early morning hours of the day following the election.