A major change to Colorado’s election system will be on the ballot this November.
Initiative 310 would fundamentally change both primary and general elections in Colorado for most state and federal races. It would create “all-candidate” primaries and switch many general elections to ranked-choice voting. State officials confirmed Thursday that backers submitted enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Primary election changes:
Currently, each political party holds a primary to select its candidate for the general election. For example, the person who wins the Republican primary becomes the Republican candidate in the general election.
Initiative 310 would eliminate those partisan primaries. Instead, all qualifying candidates would be listed on a single ballot for all voters. The four candidates who get the most votes in the all-candidate primary would then move on to the general election.
This could result in some unusual elections — for example, in the most politically homogeneous places, the top four candidates could all be from one party.
Ranked-choice voting
The proposed new system would implement ranked-choice voting for the general election in November. It implements a specific model known as instant runoff voting.
Instead of choosing a single candidate, voters could rank some or all of the four candidates based on their preference. All those rankings would then be processed together to determine a winner.
The measure would apply to elections for the state House and Senate, state offices such as governor, and all Congressional elections. It would not apply to local or presidential elections.
The proposal’s changes are meant to take effect in 2026, but state lawmakers passed a law this spring that would delay or entirely block implementation. Still, Gov. Jared Polis said that if the measure passes, he’ll work to ensure that it is implemented by 2028.
The ballot measure will go into effect if it gets the approval of at least 50 percent of voters this November. It is a statutory change, not a constitutional one, so lawmakers could further modify it if it passes.
Who’s behind it?
Initiative 310 is being funded by Kent Thiry, a multimillionaire who was previously behind some of the state’s major election reforms. Thiry was in large part responsible for the state opening its primaries to unaffiliated voters, and for the creation of the independent redistricting commission to combat gerrymandering.
“There aren't that many great democracies that have survived more than a couple hundred years. And in order to survive, you have to modernize and modify and reflect society,” he said in a recent interview.
Thiry and his allies argue that the changes to primary elections will tone down the influence of the far left and far right in selecting candidates. He says lawmakers will not have to worry so much about being “primaried” — when they are challenged by someone who is more ideologically extreme and potentially more appealing to the party base. Thiry argues that if they’re less beholden to the party bases, lawmakers will be more bipartisan.
Thiry is part of a network of wealthy donors who have bankrolled similar proposals this year in Nevada, Idaho, Oregon and Montana.
The campaign is being run by a political committee called Colorado Voters First, which has already reported raising and spending $2.5 million to get the initiative on the ballot. it’s almost certain to spend millions more on advertising and campaigning.
Who’s opposed?
Leaders of both the major political parties warn Initiative 310 could have major consequences for Colorado’s politics.
Some Democrats argue that by disempowering the political parties and their grassroots bases, Thiry wants to make it easier for money to dominate the process. Only highly funded candidates can succeed in a wide-open primary, they argue.
On the right, some critics call such reforms a “scam,” saying ranked choice voting is convoluted and deceptive.
Thiry dismisses those charges, saying that the parties themselves are the ones who have saturated the political system with money. And he says that voters will like having more freedom to express themselves.
Some prominent local election officials have warned Thiry is pushing the state too far and too fast toward changes that could potentially confuse voters and may not be needed.
Among other concerns, they warn that the complexity of the ranked-choice voting process could undercut confidence in elections. In the new system, the vote tabulation would happen across several rounds. One by one, the least popular candidate would be eliminated; if your first choice gets knocked out, your vote would then flow to your next ranked choice, and so on.
“It seems like when you get to a certain place, financially … you can just snap your fingers and think it gets done that easily,” said Matt Crane, a former Republican county clerk and the executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, in an earlier interview. “And that's certainly not the case” with election system changes, he added.
The opposition campaign, called Voter Rights Colorado, has reported raising about $20,000 and hasn’t yet reported any spending.
