DENVER — While a group from Colorado is collecting signatures to enact a measure to install the ballot initiative ranked choice voting in the state, Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill into law Thursday that would create another hurdle for the new system if the measure passes.
If ranked voting wins the Colorado vote, the state’s voters would join those in Oregon, Alaska, and Nevada, which will decide ranked-choice voting in November. If the ballot measure passes, the new law signed by Polis will require ranked-choice voting to be tested at the municipal level first before being used statewide, delaying implementation.
The group Colorado Voters First, which is leading the campaign to get ranked-choice voting on the November ballot, had dismissed the provision in the bill as an attempt to effectively stop ranked-choice voting and had asked the governor to veto it about the bill.
Polis tried to allay concerns after signing the legislation, saying that if the measure passes, they will work quickly to implement ranked voting statewide “as soon as practicable and certainly no later than the 2028 elections.”
Curtis Hubbard, a spokesman for Colorado Voters First, said in a statement that they are disappointed but will continue to “fight for every voter’s right to vote in any election.”
County clerks in Colorado largely supported the controversial provision, which would allow them to work out the kinks in the new system before it is used statewide.
The Colorado Voters First initiative would open primaries to all candidates. The top four would advance to a general election, where voters would rank the candidates instead of choosing just one. Ranked-ranked voting reduces the power of the two major parties, and the fight over its use has grown partly out of deep dissatisfaction with high-partisan politics.
Only two states use ranked voting, Maine for state primaries and federal elections Alaska for state and federal general elections.
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Bedayn is a staff member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.