In her column “Colorado’s vacancy committees are undemocratic. But what’s the alternative?”, Trish Zornio asked what options Colorado has for filling vacancies besides expensive special elections and undemocratic vacancy committees and appointments. As someone who has participated in all three types of vacancy committees (legislative, county commissioner and state board of education) and in all aspects of vacancy committees from voting to organizing and leading to being a candidate, I have some thoughts.
The most democratic way to fill a vacancy is a special election, but special elections are a burden on underfunded election administrators and typically have low turnout. Delaying a special election until the next regularly scheduled election may result in constituents not being represented for an extended period of time.
My two-pronged proposal — contingency elections and special citizens’ elections — increases voter participation in filling vacancies but does not overly burden election administrators.
You probably know how recall elections work. The first question is “Shall so-and-so be recalled from office?” A successful recall creates a vacancy. Part two is “Vote for one successor,” where the succession is contingent upon the officeholder being recalled.
This past spring, Denver could have used a “contingency election” to choose a successor if a seat became vacant. Denverites in three districts — Senate 31 (Chris Hansen), House 8 (Leslie Herod) and House 4 (Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez) — could have seen a contingency election on their ballot to choose a new legislator if their legislator was elected to a Denver office. By holding these three “contingency elections” simultaneously with Denver’s regular municipal election, Denver could have avoided most of the cost of a special election and allowed all district voters to weigh in on filling a potential vacancy. Instead, Tim Hernandez got 39 of 68 possible votes in a vacancy committee to replace Rep. Gonzales-Gutierrez.
A contingency election could and arguably should be open to candidates from all political parties, as well as multiple candidates from each party. In order to better understand voters’ nuanced opinions and in order to avoid vote-splitting between, for example, candidates from the same party, a more expressive voting method than choose-one plurality should be used. (The simplest better-than-plurality voting method is called approval voting; the instructions read “Vote for one or more,” and the highest vote-getter fills the vacancy.)
The second prong of this proposal also takes advantage of regularly scheduled elections. Consider House District 12 Rep. Tracey Bernett’s resignation just before her new term in early 2023. In a January 2023 vacancy committee meeting, Kyle Brown got 41 of 51 possible votes to fill the vacated seat for close to two years. Should Rep. Brown be entitled to two years in office based on 41 supporters? Why couldn’t constituents have a vote on the vacancy committee’s January decision during the November 2023 election, a year earlier than the ordinary state representative elections?
Again, this “special citizens’ election” idea to finish filling a vacancy should be open to candidates from all political parties, should not be limited to only one member from each party, and should use a non-plurality voting method. For these special citizens’ elections held in conjunction with regular elections, candidates could get on the ballot via collecting signatures or perhaps a political party process, such as any candidate in the vacancy committee election automatically qualifies for the ballot of the special citizens’ election. The winner of the special citizens’ election should take office as soon as the election results are certified to maximize the power of the electorate.
The special citizens’ election idea could be extended to any vacancy in elected office. The person chosen to fill the vacancy should face the voters at the next available regularly scheduled election for that jurisdiction — at a minimum, every November. Examples of elected offices that are not filled by a vacancy committee include state treasurer filled by gubernatorial appointment, county assessor filled by the county commissioners, and a school board member filled by the rest of the school board.
Granted, this two-pronged proposal does not eliminate all undemocratically filled vacancies, but it increases the power of the electorate, opens up vacancies to members of all political parties, and limits the power of whatever entity fills a vacancy. It can also drive voter turnout and engagement by adding excitement and competitiveness to an otherwise boring ballot.
Yes, I have skipped over many implementation details in order to give a big picture. I believe the implementation details can be worked out because this proposal is based on known electoral systems: recall elections, special elections held in conjunction with a regular election, and the current process of filling vacancies. This two-pronged approach is definitely worthy of discussion and, I believe, implementation — to make our representative democracy work better.
Celeste Landry lives in Boulder, helped organize a vacancy committee meeting held on her 50th birthday, got 48% support in an approval-voting round as a candidate in a different vacancy committee meeting, and was the replacement for Colorado’s 2016 faithless presidential elector.
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