Proposition 131 – Establishing All-Candidate Primary and Ranked Choice Voting General Elections

❌ VOTE NO

This initiative would create an all-candidate primary election for certain state and federal offices, where the top four candidates advance to the general election. It would allow voters to rank those candidates in the general election with votes counted over multiple rounds to determine who wins the election.

CDP recommends voting NO because:

Kent Thiry, an extremely wealthy Colorado businessman who has mused about running for Governor, is the primary power and money behind the measure. Thiry dropped $1.1 million just days before the 2024 Colorado primary to influence the outcomes, and has a long history of using his personal wealth to influence our elections and state policies. 

The system Thiry is proposing would likely make political extremism worse and increase the amount of dark money in Colorado’s elections. It would allow for well-funded special interest groups and wealthy individuals to have even more sway over our politics and which candidates move on to the General Election. 

A University of Minnesota Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs 2023 study found that this system: does not tend to produce more diversity of elected officials; decreases voter participation due to confusion; and does not decrease negative campaigning or polarization in elections. 

To make matters more complicated and dangerous, there is no statewide CO SOS approved risk-limiting audit to verify the outcome of these types of elections the initiative proposes, inviting risk and doubt to cloud results when compared to our current system.

The Democratic Party favors approaching RCV in a responsible manner, including testing RCV in more contests and in more areas to identify best practices and common issues before forcing it upon the entire state in an unproven and unsafe way. 

This is not a partisan issue; we must ensure that everyone’s vote counts and that we do not give millionaires and special interests even more power over our democracy.

For more info: Western Colorado Alliance Strongly Opposes Prop 131