Colorado voters on Tuesday rejected Proposition 131, an effort to reform the state’s voting systems in a way that sought to produce more aisle-crossing office holders and that appealed to some business leaders seeking more legislative moderation.
As of midnight., the ranked-choice-voting initiative was failing by a margin of roughly 55% to 45% with more than 2.3 million ballots having been counted. The Yes on 131 campaign conceded about two hours earlier, saying that while it was disappointed in the outcome, organizers viewed this year’s fight as “just one step on our journey” of eventually making historic change to state elections.
The measure sought first to replace each party’s winner-take-all primary for federal and state offices with an all-candidate primary in which the top four vote-getters advanced to the general election regardless of party affiliations. Then, in the general election, it would have required voters to rank those four candidates, eliminating the lowest vote-getter one round at a time and delivering their tallies instead to the candidate each backer ranked as their next choice until one contender had a majority of votes.
The rationale for and against ranked-choice voting
Former DaVita CEO Kent Thiry, who led the Proposition 131 effort organizationally and financially, said the changes would spur candidates to reach out beyond the narrow base they now need to win primaries to voters of all stripes who might make them their second choice. That in turn would elevate candidates more willing to listen to a broad swath of Coloradans and work together across party lines to pass legislation that appealed more to the masses of voters near the middle of the political spectrum, he said.
Kent Thiry, retired Davita CEO
Proposition 131 drew prominent backers including Democratic Gov. Jared Polis and Democratic U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, as well as business groups that felt it could moderate regulatory legislation being proposed increasingly at the Capitol. However, it angered both Democratic and Republican party leaders and drew opposition from prominent Democratic backers, including a plethora of unions, progressive groups and some environmental organizations.
Despite being massively outspent, the Voter Rights Colorado coalition pushed back on the initiative as one that would force more money into Colorado elections by creating two fiercely fought contests a cycle and would confuse voters with its complexity. With Thiry and other corporate backers injecting funding, they also painted Proposition 131 as a tool of corporate interests to funnel dark money into races and ballot initiatives.
“This is a win for Colorado voters, and a win for democracy against an historic spending spree by wealthy individuals and special interests on a Colorado ballot measure,” the coalition said in a statement on Tuesday evening. “Let this be a lesson to big money that grassroots power is still alive and well in Colorado when voters do their homework and cast a ballot.”
“Change doesn’t happen overnight”
In a concession statement, Thiry pushed back that the loss showed once again how much control “favored special interests” like those in the opposition coalition wield over elections, and he said that supporters made great strides in winning nearly 45% of votes. Comparing the initiative’s backers to past activists who fought for women’s suffrage and civil rights, Thiry said that they are on the right side of history and will continue to fight to open elections more to unaffiliated voters and those fed up with partisanship.
“More voters than ever are calling for better choices on their ballot, politicians who represent them, and a government that actually addresses the issues they care about,” added Nick Troiano, executive director of national voting-reform group Unite America. “Systemic change doesn’t happen overnight. Unite America is committed over the long-term to supporting election reforms in Colorado that give every voter a voice in our democracy.”
Voters in Republican and Democratic areas alike rebuked the initiative, as El Paso and Boulder counties, for example, both voted it down by similar double-digit margins. Late Tuesday, Proposition 131 was winning in only four counties — Denver, Summit, Lake and San Miguel.
This latest initiative came after Thiry and his political allies had made several changes to Colorado law since 2016 to boost the standing of unaffiliated voters. They passed ballot measures to open party primaries to unaffiliated voters, launch a presidential primary to replace the state’s presidential caucus system and create an independent redistricting commission to redraw congressional and legislative districts every 10 years.
Ranked-choice voting took hits in multiple states
Opponents of Proposition 131, however, turned the campaign’s message of greater voter inclusivity on its head this time and charged that the new system would be used as a tool to allow deep-pocketed interests to play an outsized role in campaign funding. Proposition 131 supporters pushed back that some of its main opponents — including the Colorado Education Association and the Colorado AFL-CIO — already rank among the special interests that put the most resources into electing candidates of their choosing, but voters appeared to become more skeptical of the proposal as the campaign went along.
The defeat will not impact locations in Colorado where local officials already have chosen to implement ranked-choice voting, such as the city of Boulder.
The national ranked-choice-voting movement suffered several defeats beyond Colorado on Tuesday, according to the Washington Post. Voters in Idaho and Nevada rejected measures similar to that offered in Colorado, Oregonians rejected ranked-choice voting without all-candidate primaries and Missouri voters approved an amendment to prohibit ranked-choice voting. Meanwhile, Alaska voters were about evenly split at the time this story was written about whether to repeal their ranked-choice-voting law.
Thiry did not say in his concession statement when or how he would try to revive Proposition 131 or bring forward a similar measure. But he said that support for the measure was highest among voters under age 50 and asserted that “time and public sentiment are on the side of our reforms.”