Let’s take a breath and get some more information before we decide to overhaul Colorado elections.
When it comes to elections, Colorado is the envy of the country. We enjoy a fair, secure, accurate and accessible voting system. More than 71% of Colorado voters overwhelmingly approve of how we run elections, according to a 2022 statewide University of Colorado poll.
So you can understand why those of us who actually conduct elections have questions when dramatic changes are proposed for voter approval without testing. We know that even the smallest changes can confuse voters, and our employees and citizen judges must deal with educating people at the very personal local level.
This year, several dramatic changes under proposed Initiative 310 may appear on the November ballot, and it could upend how Colorado elections are conducted. (Supporters must gather about 125,000 signatures statewide before Aug. 5 to qualify for the ballot.)
All of the Initiative 310 proposals are complex, and there are many questions about how they would impact Colorado’s well-respected election system. One is the ability to test the accuracy of final results through a post-election audit that the voting equipment and procedures used to count votes worked properly.
Colorado needs more time and experience before these changes can be fully implemented and we fully understand their impacts.
For example, among the proposals in Initiative 310 is ranked choice voting, or RCV, where voters rank their top four candidates. If no one receives more than 50%, a computerized runoff is sparked, eliminating candidates until a winner is declared. This process usually results in a several-day to two-week delay for final results.
In 2021, Colorado passed legislation to enable local governments to conduct RCV elections to understand how they work and how those elections might impact communities.
The only election held under the 2021 law so far is the city of Boulder, which tested RCV in 2023 only with the mayoral race, two years after local voters’ approval. The election required two years of preparation, was understandably more expensive and produced an abundance of information that county clerks are still studying. As our colleague Boulder County Clerk Molly Fitzpatrick put it, “RCV changes all of the processes: our voting software, outreach and communications to voters, reporting results, ballot processing, system testing and post-election accuracy testing.”
Broomfield and Fort Collins voters have also approved the RCV model but have not yet scheduled RCV elections.
Boulder and all of the cities that have approved RCV since 2021 are well-resourced and not as demographically representative of Colorado’s smaller or more rural counties, so the legislature voted to require municipalities of different sizes with diverse populations and languages hold ranked choice voting elections before statewide implementation. The on-the-ground experience and time will prove invaluable for future success if the ballot proposals are passed by voters.
In 2013, Colorado modernized our elections so every registered voter received a ballot in the mail and the option to vote in-person if that was their preference. But at that point, 72% of voters already had chosen to vote by mail through permanent absentee ballots. It was a relatively easy transition for voters, and Colorado voter participation rates went up — to one of the highest in the country.
Every year, we “tweak” Colorado election laws to accommodate what we learned from past elections to make improvements. For instance, we have expanded election laws to increase the number of voting centers and ballot drop-boxes across the state, expanded voter access on college campuses, instituted automatic voter registration, expanded multi-lingual ballot access and required post-election accuracy and transparency checks.
We will need significant infrastructure updates and time if the new model is approved by voters. New software would need to be developed for RCV on two voting systems (Dominion and Clear Ballot) and election workers would need to be trained to use the software. Citizen election judges also will need to be retrained.
Two counties use voting systems that are not certified for RCV, which will require retraining and will make statewide post-election accuracy audits problematic. Also critical will be significant voter education, which is always necessary when there is a major change to elections, to prevent voter confusion and voter error that would nullify a vote.
Research from the University of Pennsylvania, MIT, University of Minnesota and others indicates that RCV has caused voter confusion in other states and can lead to increased voter error. These same studies indicate there was decreased voter participation, particularly among minorities, younger, less informed and marginalized voters.
The Institute for Responsive Government advises that the all-candidate primary/RCV model is not for every state and it is important for voters and public officials to weigh the impacts before implementing. That is why a phased-in approach with multiple county pilot projects makes sense to us.
Lori Mitchell, a Democrat, is the Chaffee County Clerk & Recorder and has been in office since 2014.
Carly Koppes, a Republican, is the Weld County Clerk & Recorder and has been in office since 2014.
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