Note: If you got waylaid by the bad link while trying to read our February Voter article, you can read the complete artice here.
Proportional representation (PR) educational and legislative efforts continue apace. The only PR method currently allowed in CO statute is Single Transferable Vote (STV), aka Proportional Ranked Choice Voting (pRCV). LWV of Maine has just completed a study on pRCV which is available at https://www.lwvme.org/pRCV.
Here’s the latest state and local news!
Counties with 250,000 People – HB25-1265
Background: A group in Boulder would like to increase the board of county commissioners (BOCC) from 3 members to 5 members. https://boulderweekly.com/news/commissioners-three-to-five/. Current CO statute offers 4 electoral options with all members elected in single-winner contests:
- 5 districts – Option 1: all members elected solely by voters in their district. Option 2: all elected at large but the member resides in a district.
- 3 districts and 2 at-large – Option 3: all members elected at large, but 3 must live in separate districts. Option 4: 3 members elected solely by voters in their district and the other 2 members elected at large.
LWVBC Program Position: “The LWVBC supports increasing the number of county commissioners from three to five. Until Boulder County has the option to elect county commissioners using a method which promotes proportional representation, the LWVBC supports three commissioners elected from districts and two elected at-large.”
House Bill 25-1265 Modification to County Commissioner Elections: This bill is a moving target. The bill sponsor proposes a big revision of the bill. Some changes we expect include:
- Counties with 70,000 people could continue to have 3 or 5 commissioners (cmsrs). (The introduced version of the bill requires populous counties, like Boulder County, to elect 5 cmsrs.)
- Counties with 250,000 people, like Boulder County, would elect their cmsrs either by voters solely in their district or at large using STV-pRCV whenever two or more cmsrs are elected or Instant-Runoff Voting (IRV) if only one commissioner is elected.
- The signature threshold to petition a change in commissioner elections onto the ballot would drop from 8% to 5% of the vote for sec of state in the previous election.
- The changes would take effect in 2026 instead of waiting several more years.
We are worried that some powerful lobbyists want to eliminate proportional ranked voting from the bill which would remove the main value of the bill.
Update: At the March 3rd committee hearing, a “hostile amendment” was, in fact, passed to take ranked voting out of the bill and to revert to at-large winner-take-all elections. Then that amended bill was “killed” in a 6 to 5 vote.
LWVCO Stance: Amend the introduced bill. LWVCO supports the revised bill draft in general but still wants some technical amendments to make the bill work better.
Boulder and Longmont City Councils – Petitions Requesting a Study Session
Did you see the front page of the Daily Camera on Feb 25, 2025. A Boulder High senior’s Science Fair project is on the impact of at-large winner-take-all elections on Latino representation. The opposite of winner-take-all elections are proportional representation (PR) elections. PR provides each group in the electorate its fair share of representation.
LWVBC Petition to Boulder City Council Text: We, the undersigned, reside within the Boulder city limits. We call upon the Boulder City Council to hold a comprehensive study session in 2025 on proportional representation in city council elections.
Goal: 500 signatures – current target date is mid-March.
Motivation: LWVBC has sent an annual letter for the past 5 years asking the Boulder City Council to learn about proportional representation. Council seems to want to see wide support in order to prioritize such a study session.
To sign, carry a petition or get more info: Voting Methods Team vmteam@lwvbc.org or Celeste Landry 303 440 4395 landline. Petition signing opportunities are also posted in the Voting Methods News box on the lwvbc.org > Teams at Work > Voting Methods page.
RCV for Longmont Petition to Longmont City Council Text: We, the undersigned, are residents of Longmont and support the use of ranked choice voting. We formally request that City Council take action to explore the feasibility of both single-winner and multi-winner ranked choice voting for use in the city’s municipal elections.
For more info: website https://www.rcvforlongmont.org/ or email rcv4longmont@gmail.com