It’s election season once again, and Coloradans have some tough decisions ahead.
In the coming weeks, I’ll tackle a variety of Colorado’s ballot measures. But this week, let’s start with one of the more fundamental topics on our 2024 ballot: Elections.
It’s worth noting that Colorado is already a leader in election integrity, voter access and voter turnout. This includes recent changes to Colorado election laws that offer unaffiliated voters access to vote in the primary for the party of their choice.
This year, however, Coloradans are being asked if they want to upend these advances for a new election system. Specifically, Proposition 131 seeks to shift Colorado to a top-four, all-candidate primary with ranked choice voting in the general election.
This means two big changes could be in store for Colorado’s elections. First, Proposition 131 would eliminate partisan primaries and place all ballot-approved primary candidates on one ballot regardless of party affiliation. From here, only the top four candidates advance to the general election as voted on by all voters.
The second change would introduce ranked choice voting for the four candidates selected in the primary during the general election.
Of the two changes, ranked choice voting is a shoo-in. There’s a lot of evidence that RCV improves election choices and fairness by implementing a system where voters rank candidates, rather than picking just one. The rankings are then tallied until one candidate reaches a winning threshold. We definitely want this in Colorado.
Open primaries are much less understood. Colorado would be among the early adopters of this approach, meaning there’s much less evidence or modeling to understand the full implications of swapping.
Early evidence suggests a slight moderating effect in rhetoric and voting records of officials elected via open versus partisan primaries, which in and of itself has pros and cons. But even then, the test cases are thin and any effects are likely minimized in a state like Colorado that already permits unaffiliated voters to vote in a primary.
There are also questions about what happens if primary voters, who tend to be more partisan and reflect only a small portion of overall voters, select candidates from only one party to proceed to the general election in heavily polarized districts. Would candidates such as Adam Frisch or Marshall Dawson even make the ballot in such cases?
In short, there’s a lot more we don’t know about open primaries than we do know, and for many that can be concerning — especially when the backers of the initiatives are steeped in big money.
All this said, there’s a decent chance Proposition 131 will pass, despite strong opposition from both state political parties and a potpourri of representatives including Rep. Lauren Boebert to Rep. Diana DeGette. A lot of far-right and progressive organizations also reject the measure, but not even everyone in those camps agree. One prominent progressive advocate even argues Proposition 131 could actually help progressives.
“Prop 131 strengthens democracy by shifting elections to November where turnout is much higher, giving younger, diverse and working-class voters real power,” says Deep Singh Badhesha, a left-leaning political activist. “It weakens far-right dominance and opens the door to advance progressive policies in health care, housing and climate justice. Of course, money in politics is still a huge problem, so progressives will need strong grassroots organizing to take advantage of higher turnout.”
Singh Badhesha points to the 2020 primary election, where he notes that among Democrats, the majority voted for more progressive candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren than for Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg types. He suggests this reflects a larger trend that could be successful for advancing progressive candidates under 131.
And it’s entirely possible, but without more robust modeling, any argument is hard to prove.
This leaves me a bit torn. On the one hand, while ranked choice voting is a no-brainer, open primaries are still a bit untested for my liking. Plus, without targeting the real culprit behind extreme politics — money — I’m skeptical Proposition 131 will make all that much of a difference in rooting out corruption.
Then again, we do need to try something to tamp down the political climate, and given Proposition 131 might not even take effect for several years due to technicalities — paving the way for time with modifications — and given that the known ranked choice benefits might compensate for the unknowns of open primaries, I’m inclined to give it a try.
Either way, what I do know is this: If we want to see real improvements in American politics, we’ve got to tackle the money in politics, because the sheer fact that Proposition 131 is even on the ballot is all the proof you need. Kent Thiry and wealthy politicians have no business strong-arming their way onto Colorado’s ballot, and that’s the true reform we need.
Trish Zornio is a scientist, lecturer and writer who has worked at some of the nation’s top universities and hospitals. She’s an avid rock climber and was a 2020 candidate for the U.S. Senate in Colorado.
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