DENVER — Colorado lawmakers advanced a bill Tuesday that would give voters more time to vote and drop off their ballots amid President Donald Trump’s threats to buck the Constitution by trying to nationalize elections.

Democrats in the state House passed House Bill 1113 in a 41-22 vote, sending the measure to the Senate over Republican opposition.

Lawmakers typically undertake election reforms just about every year, largely to adopt technical changes sought by county clerks and the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. This year’s version includes similar tweaks.

But HB-1113 would also extend several key voting deadlines. The bill would require that drop boxes accept ballots for 22 days before an election, rather than the current law’s 15-day window. Ballots could be mailed to voters up to 29 days ahead of Election Day, up from 22 days now.

At a minimum, clerks would have to mail ballots out at least 25 days ahead of time, up from 18 days in the current law.

“Colorado’s elections are the gold standard in part because we continuously update our laws to guard against new threats to our democracy,” Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat, said in a statement. She’s sponsoring the bill with Rep. Jenny Willford. “Coloradans deserve to cast their ballot without barriers, and this bill safeguards against federal interference in our elections and makes it easier to vote.”

The changes come ahead of the 2026 midterm elections and follow Trump’s escalating calls for the federal government and Republicans to “take over” and “nationalize” elections. Trump allies — including Peter Ticktin, the lawyer for incarcerated former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters — have circulated a draft executive order that would attempt to give Trump unprecedented control over elections, according to the Washington Post.

The U.S. Constitution grants control over elections to state legislatures, with oversight authority granted to Congress.

Colorado officials have criticized Trump’s rhetoric in the past and defended Colorado as a model for election administration nationwide. In a statement about the Washington Post’s report last week, Secretary of State Jena Griswold criticized the president as “one of the greatest threats to American elections.”

In addition to expanding various voting timelines, HB-1113 would also allow people who live in transitional housing — like halfway houses — to vote.

As Colorado’s ballots grow longer and longer, the legislation would also allow voters to take written materials into polling places for their own reference. Voting centers that run out of supplies would be required to stay open past the 7 p.m. poll closing time. Colleges would be required to provide more information about voting to their students in the days before Election Day.

HB-1113 would repeal a provision of state law that allows a registered voter to challenge the eligibility of other voters. During a committee hearing last month, Sirota told fellow lawmakers that people who’d bought into misinformation about ineligible voters were sending lengthy lists of challenges to county clerks.

She said she was open to reforms, rather than a full repeal of that provision, but added that lawmakers were moving forward with stripping it for the time being.

House Republicans unanimously opposed the bill, citing various reasons. Rep. Stephanie Luck attempted to amend the bill to make it easier for political parties to close their primaries to unaffiliated voters, long a goal of some in the Colorado GOP. Rep. Ken DeGraaf, who last year questioned the results of the 2024 election that sent him and the rest of the House to the Capitol, defended Peters and sought to add more election security controls to the bill.

Other Republicans said some of the bill’s provisions would add burdensome new costs for small counties.

The bill now moves to the Senate, where it needs a committee vote and two floor votes before moving to Gov. Jared Polis for passage into law.

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