This election year, Colorado voters will have the opportunity to establish a new method of voting for the state legislature, governor, the United States Senate and House of Representatives and other state offices.
Ranked choice voting (RCV) in its purest form allows voters to rank the candidates based on preference. Voters can express interest in multiple candidates outside of their party. This form of voting gives insights into the most popular candidates within the population rather than the single most popular.
“We definitely get a more accurate representation of the general voter population because they don’t have to whittle down their entire political identity to one candidate,” said Sam Young, Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU) Election Manager.
Colorado’s elections currently begin with a primary that selects major and minor political party candidates for the general election. Unaffiliated parties are placed straight in the general election, with the qualification being gathering signatures.
Under Prop. 131, voters will receive a primary ballot that includes all qualifying candidates, rather than just a ballot based on party affiliation. The four candidates who received the most votes advance to the general election.
The general election is what would incorporate RCV. If a candidate receives more than half of the votes for first place, they are automatically elected. However, if no candidate receives a majority of first-round votes, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated, and voters who chose that candidate as their first choice have their vote transferred to their second-choice candidate; this process is repeated until one candidate receives a majority of votes.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein referred to Prop. 131 as a “trojan horse” during a campaign rally at the Mercury Cafe on October 12.
“The problem with Prop 131 is that it starts with a jungle primary,” Stein said. “Basically, money wins in a jungle primary. You’ve eliminated all of the people-powered voices that are out there. But that’s exactly what we need right now. There are great things about ranked choice voting, but if the candidates have already been filtered to get out the people-powered candidates, then we’ve lost all the solutions that people are desperate for.”
If Prop. 131 is passed, implementation would begin in 2026. The short window to change the election system causes concerns about the frequency of mistakes. Critics argue mistakes will occur either during the balloting process or when the votes are tallied.
Adams County Clerk Josh Zygielbaum, in a panel with Front Range Community College on October 29, noted the difficulty the change would bring when counting votes.
“From an administration standpoint, it’s going to be challenging,” Zygielbaum said. “From an auditing standpoint, it’s going to be challenging because of the sheer number of combinations of different types of votes. There’s going to be financial impacts and tech development that would need to happen.”
Curtis Hubbard, partner at OnSight Public Affairs and campaign manager, describes the transition from the traditional voting system to RCV as absolute.
“The other real question around implementation is going to be voter education and helping voters understand how ranked choice voting works by working with the county clerks and other election advocates to inform voters about the new system for designing ballots that follow the best practices for ranked choice voting and for designing a system that really makes it as seamless as possible,” Hubbard said.
MSU already uses RCV for its campus elections. MSU’s efforts to educate the student body about RCV during the election process began by advising candidates to spread the word during their campaigns. The ballot itself includes instructions for properly filling it out.
RCV, in essence, gives voters more options while eliminating the spoiler effect caused by non-winning candidates. According to Hubbard, RCV would encourage more positive campaigning than the current system, which promotes “destruction.” Furthermore, RCV would expand opportunities for candidates from disadvantaged communities and provide voters with more options.
“We have 26% turnout in the primary election,” Hubbard said. “More than two-thirds of the races in the primary election are uncompetitive. With RCV, we encourage turnout in the primary phase, and you have competitive elections because the top four candidates advance to the general election, as opposed to a candidate from a safe, Democratic or Republican district advancing to the general election.”
Advocates believe that RCV provides voters with more options and increases candidates’ chances of election. Opponents pushed back that Prop 131 still paves the way for corporate interest candidates to influence the election.
“In our most polarized districts across the state, it is not unreasonable to expect that voters are going to be seeing four Democrats or four Republicans on their general election ballot,” said Patrick Dillon, a campaign associate for the Green Party. “That’s really not democracy.”
Alternatives to Prop 131 are simply seeing RCV implemented across all aspects of the voting process—from the primary to the general election. RCV evens the playing field for candidates and assists voters by offering more choices.
“What we want is ranked choice voting in every aspect of our election process without limiting choice,” Dillon said. “That’s where we need to go. Proposition 131 pretends to get us there, but it’s just a guise for more corporate interests influencing Colorado elections.”
