Proposition 131 — Colorado’s open primary and ranked-choice voting ballot measure — would be a seismic change for state elections. Here’s how. 

If approved by Colorado voters this November, Proposition 131 — the ballot measure being pushed by a Denver-based multimillionaire — would radically reshape how the state holds elections. 

It would abolish political party primaries, the process used to nominate party candidates who compete in a general election, in favor of an open primary ballot. And it would institute ranked-choice voting in the general election, allowing voters to choose multiple candidates in order of preference. The complex tabulation process would eliminate candidates in rounds, with the candidate who secures over 50% of the vote being declared the winner. 

“It would be very consequential in terms of its reach and its impact,” said Anand Sokhey, a political science professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, “and I think that’s a part of what the proponents are certainly pushing for.”

Proposition 131 is the latest effort by Kent Thiry, the former CEO for the dialysis company DaVita, to overhaul Colorado’s election systems. Thiry was an advocate for independent state redistricting commissions as well as opening party primaries to unaffiliated voters. He also cochairs the national nonprofit Unite America, which has pushed similar election reform initiatives in nearly a dozen other states. 

Thiry and other proponents have pitched the measure as a way of giving voters more choice, particularly for those unaffiliated with either major party. Opponents have criticized the approach as one that would complicate the voting process, make it harder for parties to be represented in general elections and incentivize more money in politics. 

“There’s an assumption that, with a system like this, 1,000 flowers will bloom,” Sokhey said. “But that may not necessarily be the case, and you still need money to bloom.” 

Whether Proposition 131 would confirm proponents’ hopes — or opponents’ fears — remains an open question, Sokhey said. 

And Colorado isn’t the only state contemplating such a massive rewrite of its election laws this November. Eleven other ballot measures across eight states, including questions on open primaries and ranked-choice voting, will be decided this election. 

“I do think the timing of this is not an accident with the nature of our politics right now — high polarization, threats to our democracy,” Sokhey said. “I think it will provide a real conversation for folks about choice and parties and elections. … There’s a mood for change.”

To date, Thiry has poured $1.43 million into the Proposition 131 campaign that has amassed $9.24 million in total, easily making it the most expensive Colorado ballot measure of the 2024 General Election, campaign finance records show. 

“I’m contributing a fraction of what is being spent, and I think it’s really important for America that people who are financially fortunate spend money for the good of society,” Thiry said during a recent forum hosted by The Colorado Sun. 

Other wealthy donors include Netflix cofounder and executive chairman Wilmot Reed Hastings Jr. and Walmart heir Ben Walton, who have both committed $1 million as of Sept. 30.

Opponents maintain that grassroots energy is on their side, even as they face a brutal fundraising gap. 

Voter Rights Colorado, one of two issue committees formed in opposition to Proposition 131, has raised $83,000, with some of its largest donations coming from the state education association, the Working Families Party, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees labor union. 

The other opposition group, First Choice Counts, has raised just over $7,000 mostly from individual contributions. 

How would Proposition 131 work?

Currently in Colorado, Democrats and Republicans hold their primary process wherein candidates for different races compete within their party and one winner advances to a general election as the party nominee. The same is true for minority parties, like the Green Party. 

Proposition 131 would do away with that by introducing an all candidate — or open — primary, meaning candidates from different parties would compete together on the same ballot. Voters would select one candidate for each race, and the top four vote-getters would face each other in a general election. 

“Under the existing system, we have a semi-closed primary where Republicans have to vote in the Republican primary, Democrats vote in the Democratic primary and unaffiliated voters have to pick one or the other,” said Curtis Hubbard, spokesperson for the Yes on 131 campaign.

Hubbard said the new approach, which would still identify party affiliations for candidates on the ballot, would allow voters to pick candidates during the primary based on who best represents them regardless of party. For example, a voter who belongs to the Democratic Party could vote for a Democrat in a congressional primary race and a Republican in a gubernatorial primary race. 

“There would be no limitation to how voters could express their support,” Hubbard said.

That’s especially important in a state where nearly 1 in every 2 voters now identify as unaffiliated even if they maintain partisan leanings, Hubbard said. By comparison, only about a quarter each identify as a Republican or Democrat, according to state data. 

The changes under Proposition 131 would only apply to primaries for Congressional races and elections for state offices such as governor, attorney general, secretary of state and the state legislature. It would not change the primary system for presidential nominees or local elections like county commissioners. Hubbard said it would also not adjust the way candidates make it onto a primary ballot. 

In Colorado, there are three ways someone can do so. One is to win the necessary number of votes from a party’s assembly, which is made up of delegates from local party chapters. Another is to petition onto the ballot by collecting a certain number of signatures. Candidates can also file to run as a write-in option. 

The second prong of the ballot measure is to implement ranked-choice voting in the general election for congressional and state-level candidates. 

Voters would have the option of ranking the four candidates who advanced from the primary from their first to last choice. If none of the four candidates secure more than 50% of votes after the first round of ballot counting, the candidate with the fewest votes would be eliminated. 

Voters who chose that candidate as their first choice would then have their second-option votes counted. This would add new votes to the other three candidates. The process of elimination and vote redistribution would then continue until one candidate secures a majority. 

Regarding whether a ranked-choice ballot could lead to more errors, such as a voter choosing the same ranking for multiple candidates, Hubbard said those issues would be left in the hands of state election officials and courts which already currently handle ballot corrections, known as “curing.” 

Hubbard stressed that ranking candidates would be optional, meaning a general election ballot would still be counted even if not all candidates were selected.

More choices or more complicated?

Hubbard said the change to primaries is perhaps the most critical piece of Proposition 131’s election reform. By having a ballot unrestricted by party, the primary — and general election — would become more competitive, he argued. 

In states like Colorado with heavy partisan leanings, primaries are “often the election of consequence,” Hubbard said. “If you live in a heavily Democratic district or heavily Republican (district), oftentimes that candidate who wins in (a) June (primary) will go on to win in November.”

Hubbard also believes it would increase the likelihood that every candidate in a general election race faces a competitive opponent.

In this year’s election, 13 candidates for the state legislature — 10 Democrats and three Republicans — are running either unopposed or against third-party candidates who face slim odds of success. 

The open, top-four primary system “eliminates the prospect of offices where someone is on the general election ballot and doesn’t have any competition,” Hubbard said, which is something that “happens too often in Colorado, especially in highly partisan districts.”

When it comes time to vote in the general election, ranked-choice voting again provides the electorate with more options, Hubbard said, because candidates will also need to appeal to a broader swath of the population to secure a second or third choice vote, which could be the deciding factor in an election. 

Hubbard believes that could help tone down negative political rhetoric. 

“It’s not just a contest of tearing one another down, it’s a contest of whose policies work best for voters in the district,” Hubbard said.

The ballot proposal has netted a number of high-profile endorsements from voting rights groups like the League of Women Voters and Fair Vote to state and federal officials, the most prominent being Gov. Jared Polis and Sen. John Hickenlooper, who are both Democrats. The state Democratic Party, however, opposes the measure.

In a poll of 800 likely Colorado voters released last month by the campaign, 56% said they would vote “yes” while 23% were undecided. 

A litany of progressive Colorado groups, including civil rights rights organizations such as the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity & Reproductive Rights, oppose the measure. The state’s premier voter mobilization initiative, Common Cause Colorado, as well as dozens of state lawmakers, are also opposed. U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Denver Democrat, is the most high-ranking elected official to come out in opposition. 

“We look at Prop. 131 and ranked-choice voting as a way of further convoluting the election system in Colorado,” said Jason Lupo, founder of First Choice Counts, one of two political committees formed to oppose Proposition 131. 

Because the ballot measure would only go into effect for certain races and not others, it would create different ways of voting during the same election cycle. It’s unclear how ballots for races not affected by Proposition 131 — like the presidency and county offices — would be distributed to voters alongside open-primary and ranked-choice general election ballots. It could mean voters’ receive separate ballots, or one ballot split into sections with different instructions on how to vote, Lupo said. 

Lupo is also in favor of preserving party primaries and said the current system ensures all parties — major and minor — can be represented by a candidate in the general election. In intensely partisan districts, the top four primary candidates could all be from the same party, which Lupo said restricts voter choice. In a deep blue community such as Denver, for example, it’s unlikely a Republican primary candidate would make it onto the general election ballot.

“There’s no guarantee a party would even be represented in the general election if you go with this system,” Lupo said. “We’re also talking about the minor parties — that they won’t even be represented in the general election in November.”

Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib said it’s important that parties are represented, adding, “Voters deserve better than all Democratic general elections and all Republican general elections.”

He also criticized the changes to primaries as one that would create a “pay-to-play system for ballot access” wherein the candidates with the most resources are the ones likely to succeed. 

On ranked-choice voting, Murib said the proposal “has its merits as a concept” but would do “too much too soon” and overwhelm election systems if approved by voters in November. 

Members of the Colorado Republican Party, which also oppose Proposition 131, did not respond to a request for comment, but on the party’s website it states, “In extreme liberal Colorado, (ranked-choice voting) ensures the most extreme Democrats prevail, and less conservative choices for office end up winning elected offices.”

Desmond Wallington, cochair for the Green Party of Colorado, said in a statement that while ranked-choice voting has been part of the party’s national platform since the 1990s, the state affiliation opposes the measure because of the open primary proposal. 

“As a political party who does not accept corporate money and rejects Super PACs, we anticipate dark money pouring into the primary election, which are typically low turnout and low engagement,” Wallington stated, adding that it “will bottleneck political diversity in the general election and allow Democrats and Republicans to have multiple candidates on the final ballot.”

Alaska, a case study 

Hubbard rejects the arguments brought against Proposition 131, saying the current political system is already “pay to play” and arguing that an open primary not controlled by parties “gives more opportunity to candidates from disadvantaged communities that might not be connected to traditional levers of power.”

Responding to party officials’ concerns of representation, Hubbard said, “Elections belong to voters, not political parties.” 

And when it comes to concerns around voter confusion, Hubbard said there is ample evidence to suggest ranked-choice voting is an easy-to-understand process. He points to Alaska as an example of where the system has been put to the test and shown promising results. 

The state in 2020 adopted an identical version of the proposal currently facing Colorado, one that was also supported by Unite America, the national election reform group that Thiry is a part of. 

In 2022, the state held its first open primary and ranked-choice general election, with a result that struck a chord across the political spectrum in a traditionally ruby-red state. 

Mary Peltola, a moderate Democrat, won a statewide election to the House of Representatives, beating out Republican candidates including the state’s former governor, Sarah Palin. At the same time, moderate Senate Republican Lisa Murkowksi secured a fourth term despite efforts from former President Donald Trump to unseat her, while pro-Trump Gov. Mike Dunleavy was reelected. 

Hubbard said the results, from the election of a centrist Democrat to a hard-right governor, demonstrates voters’ ability to express their preference based on candidate rather than just party. 

Additionally, exit polls conducted with voters in both the primary and general elections showed the overwhelming majority approved of the new system. 

In an August 2022 poll commissioned by Alaskans for Better Elections, which campaigned in favor of the state’s election changes, 62% of the 1,200 voters surveyed said they favored open primaries. Another poll conducted after the November 2022 election by the same group found 79% of the 800 voters surveyed said using a ranked-choice voting ballot was simple. 

When looking at the impacts on voter turnout, however, the data is less clear. 

Nearly 37% of the eligible voting public took part in the August 2022 primary, according to data from the Alaska Division of Elections, the state’s highest turnout for a primary since 2014. However, November general election turnout was under 51%, the lowest since 1976. 

Sean Hinga, a leader for the opposition group Voter Rights Colorado, said he worries the latter could happen in his state if voters were to adopt the same system. Without a successful voter education campaign, Hinga argues ranked-choice voting could depress turnout in Colorado, a state that consistently ranks near the top for voter participation. 

“It is true that historically marginalized communities do not receive the resources they need for that voter education,” Hinga said. 

He also pushed back on the claim that open primaries and ranked-choice voting create more choice. He points to Alaska’s general election this year, which saw over a quarter of state district races — 11 out of 44 — have either just one party or one candidate running, as an example. 

Since its implementation in 2022, open primaries and ranked-choice voting have faced threats from Alaska lawmakers and political groups seeking to overturn the new system. 

Republicans in Alaska’s state legislature, who’ve been vocally opposed to open primaries and ranked-choice voting, tried and failed earlier this year to abolish it. In November, voters will weigh in on a ballot measure seeking to repeal the system. 

Not the first time for ranked-choice in Colorado 

This isn’t the first time Colorado has experimented with ranked-choice voting. Already, a handful of municipalities use the system for local elections including Carbondale, Basalt, Broomfield and, most recently, Boulder. 

A city with a population size of just over 100,000, Boulder adopted twin measures in 2020 to directly elect its mayor and do so via ranked-choice ballot. Last year marked the city’s first ranked-choice mayoral election with two liberal and two conservatives who jockeyed for the seat. Initial ballot tabulations showed a nail-biting race between two candidates who were both city council members. 

Aaron Brocket, a registered Democrat, trailed Bob Yates, a moderate conservative and former registered Republican. For nearly 24 hours the results showed Yates ahead. But as more votes were counted and the bottom two candidates were eliminated, second-choice votes helped push Brocket over the edge. 

Jan Burton, a former Boulder City Council member and proponent of the city’s push to adopt ranked-choice voting, hailed the election as “absolutely more democratic.”

Burton says without ranked-choice voting, the two liberal candidates likely would have split each other’s vote share, presenting a real possibility that a conservative and former Republican could have won the mayoral seat in a liberal city. She also doesn’t believe any candidate would have received a majority of votes. 

“That’s one of the things ranked-choice voting does, it forces someone to get above 50%,” Burton said. 

Linda Templin, executive director and founder of the advocacy group Ranked Choice Voting for Colorado, said the system has been positively received in Boulder and other communities. 

Templin’s group, which is not associated with the Proposition 131 campaign, commissioned an exit poll of Boulder voters after the city’s 2023 election. Of the 600 registered voters surveyed, 77% said they were satisfied with their voting experience while 86% said it was easy to fill out their ballot.

Another study of voters in the 2020 election in Basalt also showed strong support and understanding of ranked-choice voting and found that, of 1,151 ballots cast in that election, only three were marked incorrectly and thrown out.

“People want to be free to vote their values, and voting the lesser of two evils is not really freedom,” Templin said on why she supports ranked-choice voting.

But the examples of ranked-choice voting in Boulder and other municipalities represent nonpartisan elections that don’t have a primary — and are on a much smaller scale. The system proposed under Proposition 131 would have far greater effects on the state’s political and electoral landscape, particularly because of the open primary process. 

For those reasons, Templin’s group, while an advocate for ranked-choice voting, is neutral on the statewide proposal.  

If approved, uncertainty remains

Even if voters approved Proposition 131, it’s uncertain when — or if — it will be implemented. 

Earlier this year, state lawmakers approved an amendment to an elections security bill that requires a dozen Colorado municipalities in counties of various sizes and with different demographics to conduct ranked-choice voting before it can be used for a state or federal race. 

That would delay implementation from 2026, when it’s supposed to go into effect, to 2028 at the earliest. 

“Frankly, it could be indefinite. It’s written kind of ambiguous,” said Sokhey, the political professor. “It could punt it significantly down the road that there’s time to repeal it and counter mobilize, and I think that’s part of the strategy.”

Polis, a supporter, has pledged to have statewide implementation of ranked-choice voting and open primaries no later than the 2028 election cycle, should voters approve it. In written remarks during the election security bill’s signing, Polis stated he would issue an executive order to facilitate a process to do so. 

Lawmakers who supported the amendment said it was done to ensure local election officials have time to implement such sweeping changes, including updating election software and materials, testing systems and educating voters, all of which are expected to cost counties and the state millions of dollars. 

Proponents, however, have lambasted the effort as obstructing the will of voters should the ballot measure pass. 

Templin, who leads the ranked-choice voting group that is neutral, said taking the necessary time to implement open primary and ranked-choice voting is important.

“The measure itself does need some fine tuning,” Templin said. “Our first concern is that the implementation is sound, because we want to see it work for the voters.”

Still, Templin said any delay beyond 2028 would be “unreasonable” and could be seen as the state dragging its feet on implementation. 

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5. Ballots will begin to go out Friday, Oct. 11.

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