Open primary, ranked choice voting measure earns enough signatures, election reformers say

Ballots wait to be counted at the Adams County Government Center in Brighton, Nov. 7, 2023. (Kevin Mohatt for Colorado Newsline)

An election reform group backed by an influential Colorado megadonor says it has submitted 213,000 signatures to the Colorado secretary of state’s office in support of a sweeping measure to abolish party primaries and adopt ranked choice voting.

The submission makes it likely that Initiative 310 , backed by the group Colorado Voters First, will comfortably exceed the minimum threshold of 124,238 valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot once its petitions are verified by the secretary of state.

The initiative proposes to replace Colorado’s partisan primary system with a single “all-candidate primary” for each state and federal office. The top four candidates would advance to a general election decided by ranked choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting. Under this method, voters would rank as many or as few of the four candidates as they wish, and candidates with the fewest first-place votes are eliminated until one candidate receives a majority.

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The nonprofit Unite America backed a successful effort to establish such a system in Alaska in 2020 and is pushing its model in Colorado and a half dozen other states in 2024. The group is co-chaired by Kent Thiry, former CEO of Denver-based dialysis services company DaVita, who has previously bankrolled successful efforts to open Colorado’s primaries to unaffiliated voters and establish independent redistricting commissions.

The group touts its model as a cure for partisan polarization and political dysfunction. A press release sent by Colorado Voters First on Thursday touted support from both sides of the aisle.

“The partisan primary system in place right now excludes too many voters and gives too much power to the political parties to determine which candidates are ultimately elected,” said Terrance Carroll, a Democratic former speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives. “Colorado voters are eager to assert their voices in our elections and improve elected officials’ ability to work together and govern effectively.”

Dick Wadhams, former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, said in a statement that Colorado voters “deserve the freedom to vote for any candidate they choose in any election.”

“Colorado elections have evolved as the need for improvements have emerged over time, and opening the Primary Election process to all voters, whether they are affiliated with a political party or not, is another common-sense step in that evolution,” Wadhams said.

But other members of both parties have been highly critical of the measure.

A group of Republican activists have filed a series of competing ballot initiatives to block the Colorado Voters First plan, including a blanket prohibition on ranked choice voting. They face an Aug. 5 deadline to submit signatures. Some Colorado Democrats argue that the proposed system would advantage wealthy candidates — possibly, they say, including Thiry, who previously has publicly mulled a run for governor.

Local elections officials across the state have also been cool towards the proposal, fretting over the feasibility of implementing the new system on the timeline envisioned by Thiry and his allies. With support from the Colorado County Clerks Association, a last-minute amendment to an elections bill passed at the end of the 2024 legislative session erected several significant obstacles that could delay the initiative’s implementation.

But alongside top Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis said upon signing the bill in May that state leaders will “take prompt and good faith actions to successfully implement the will of the voters” if the measure passes, promising the measure’s reforms would take effect “no later than the 2028 election cycle.”

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