{"id":25003,"date":"2024-11-06T05:16:39","date_gmt":"2024-11-06T12:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-voters-reject-ranked-choice-election-ballot-measure\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:07:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:07:05","slug":"colorado-voters-reject-ranked-choice-election-ballot-measure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-voters-reject-ranked-choice-election-ballot-measure\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado voters reject ranked choice election ballot measure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A ballot box at the Harvard Gulch Recreation Center on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024, in Denver, Colorado. (Jesse Paul\/The Colorado Sun file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado voters on Tuesday rejected Proposition 131, which would have moved the state to an all-candidate primary system where the top four vote-getters advanced to ranked choice general elections.<\/p>\n

The supporters of the measure conceded at about 10 p.m., when 56% of the vote was opposed to the initiative and 44% were in support.<\/p>\n

The sizable failure of the initiative, led by Kent Thiry, the wealthy former CEO of the Denver-based dialysis giant DaVita, prevents an earthquake in Colorado politics. And it comes despite the nearly $19 million raised by Colorado Voters First, the issue committee supporting Proposition 131.<\/p>\n

Thiry donated about $6 million to the group, including $2.1 million in the final week of the campaign.<\/p>\n

Colorado Voters First also received major donations from the oil and gas giant Chevron; Walmart heir Ben Walton; the Colorado Chamber of Commerce; and Unite America, a Denver-based group where Thiry serves as cochair of the board.<\/p>\n

\u201cReforms of this magnitude take time and effort,\u201d Thiry said in a written statement. \u201cCampaigns that have been on the right side of history \u2013 from women\u2019s suffrage, to civil rights, to marriage equality \u2013 were all journeys that experienced defeat before finding overwhelming victories. This is just one step on our journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cTime and public sentiment are on the side of our reforms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voter Rights Colorado was the issue committee opposing the measure. It raised and spent a few hundred thousand dollars, a fraction of what Colorado Voters First did.<\/p>\n

Voter Rights Colorado was funded by a list of liberal groups. Its major donors included the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that doesn\u2019t disclose its donors; the National Education Association; New Era Colorado; and Coloradans for Accessible and Secure Elections, another nonprofit that doesn\u2019t disclose its donors. Colorado WINS, the state employee union, and the Colorado AFL-CIO, also gave to the committee, as did the Working Families Party, the abortion rights group Cobalt Advocates, and the liberal political nonprofit ProgressNow Colorado, which doesn\u2019t disclose its donors.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Democratic Party and Colorado GOP were also vehemently opposed to Proposition 131, but neither spent much money or made much of an effort to defeat it.<\/p>\n

In ranked choice voting elections, sometimes called instant-runoff voting, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If a candidate wins more than 50% of the first-preference votes, they are declared the winner. If no candidate reaches that threshold, candidates with the fewest first-preference supporters are eliminated. The process continues until one candidate exceeds 50% of the total vote. (This video explains the process in more detail.)<\/p>\n

The measure would have applied to races for Congress, governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, state board of education and University of Colorado regents, as well as state legislative contests. It would not have applied to presidential or local contests, like those for district attorney, city council or county commissioner.<\/p>\n

The failure of Proposition 131 marks a major disappointment for Thiry, a figure in Colorado politics who draws as much scorn as he does support. He was acquitted in 2022 by a federal jury of antitrust charges brought because federal prosecutors said he made agreements with other companies not to hire each other\u2019s employees.<\/p>\n

Love him or hate him, Thiry\u2019s impact on Colorado\u2019s election system is undeniable.<\/p>\n

Thiry backed a pair of ballot measures in 2016 reinstating presidential primaries in Colorado and letting unaffiliated voters cast ballots in partisan primary elections. In 2018, he worked with lawmakers to get voters to agree to create independent redistricting commissions to redraw boundaries for U.S. House and legislative districts.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also been a prolific political donor, spending money to influence elections in Colorado and other states.<\/p>\n

Linda Sturm, a Democratic voter in Westminster, said she voted \u201cno\u201d on Proposition 131 when she cast her ballot in Adams County on Tuesday. She worried that it would cause \u201cchaos within the voting system\u201d and helo \u201cbottom-of-the-barrel\u201d candidates get elected.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I don\u2019t like Thiry, who\u2019s behind the thing,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t like him. So I think it\u2019s an attempt to rig a system that\u2019s working.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Eagle County, 44-year-old Lucila Tvarkunas, an unaffiliated voter, was also a \u201cno\u201d on Proposition 131.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter doing some research, it sounded like it was just funded by very rich people,\u201d she said. \u201cAfter studying it, I think we should keep things the way they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eagle resident Nathan Allison, a Libertarian voter, cast a \u201cyes\u201d vote on the initiative. She hopes it will give more candidates an opportunity to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a good way to go,\u201d Allison said.<\/p>\n

Tavianna Seidl, a 21-year-old unaffiliated voter in Colorado Springs, also voted \u201cyes\u201d on 131 on Tuesday. She also believes it will give more candidates a chance at winning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many other candidates,\u201d she said, \u201cthey are just not as glorified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voter Rights Colorado, which opposed Proposition 131, celebrated the measure\u2019s failure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a win for Colorado voters, and a win for democracy against a historic spending spree by wealthy individuals and special interests on a Colorado ballot measure,\u201d Sean Hinga, the Colorado legislative and political director for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in a written statement sent out by Voter Rights Colorado. \u201cLet 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

AFSCME was one of the main donors to Voter Rights Colorado.<\/p>\n

Colorado Sun staff writers Parker Yamasaki, Jason Blevins and Olivia Prentzel contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Proposition 131 was funded in large part by Kent Thiry, the wealthy former CEO of the Denver-based dialysis giant DaVita<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[266,28,1509,1621],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-state-elections","tag-voting"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78766,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25003\/revisions\/78766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25003"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}