Proposition 131

Create an all-candidate primary election for certain state and federal offices, where the top four candidates advance to the general election; and allow voters to rank those candidates in the general election, with votes counted over multiple rounds to determine who wins the election.

Kent Thiry, a wealthy Colorado businessman who has mused about running for Governor, is the primary power and money behind the measure. Thiry dropped $1.1 million just days before the 2024 Colorado primary to influence the outcomes, and has a long history of using his vast personal wealth to influence our elections and our state’s policies.

Under Thiry’s proposed system, voters would first cast votes in the primary election where candidates from all parties would be listed on one ballot, but only for certain races. The top four vote-getters regardless of Party would advance to a General Election. In that General Election: voters would cast four ranked votes in each race for half the candidates on the ballot (all federal and all statewide and legislative races) and then just one vote apiece for the other half of the ballot (US President, district attorney, county races, school boards, city and other local races). This has created a system in Alaska where single-party General Elections are not uncommon and candidate recruitment is made even more difficult. This is an overly confusing model that does nothing to solve the issue of political extremism, which the initiative’s proponents claim their policy addresses, but it makes it worse: Thiry’s proposed election system tilts Colorado towards more dark money in our elections, and allows for well-funded special interest groups and wealthy individuals to have even more sway over our politics and which candidates move on to the General Election.

Ranked-choice voting (RCV) is a complicated election model, and it can become so complicated that other states with RCV show it suppresses voting - especially among underrepresented communities, disabled communities and communities of color - and creates high levels of mistakes that invalidate votes. Voters in RCV states also express less confidence in the results. The organization Ranked Choice Voting for Colorado has decided to remain neutral on this initiative due to the broad policy concerns associated with this initiative despite their desire to see ranked choice voting in our state. Further, a University of Minnesota Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs 2023 study of states with ranked-choice voting found there is little to no evidence the system of RCV this initiative proposes produces more diversity of elected officials, found that it actually decreases voter participation due to confusion, and does not decrease negative campaigning or polarization in elections.

To make matters more complicated and dangerous, there is no statewide CO SOS approved risk-limiting audit to verify the outcome of these types of elections the initiative proposes, inviting risk and doubt to cloud the results when compared to our current system.

The Democratic Party has approached RCV in a responsible manner thus far. We should spend our time testing RCV in more contests and in more areas to identify best practices and common issues before forcing it upon the entire state in an unproven and unsafe way.

If this measure does pass, Colorado voters will have either one long confusing ballot or two separate ballots with two different ways to vote in the general election. County clerks, who run our elections statewide, were never consulted about the proposed system and have raised red flags about whether it can be implemented correctly with the available resources and in the tight time frame. We should take their concerns seriously – non-partisan analysis estimates Colorado taxpayers will spend $21 million in the first two years alone to implement this initiative should it pass.

This is not a partisan issue; we must ensure that everyone’s vote counts and that we do not give millionaires and special interests even more power over our democracy.