| December 2023
Editor Jennifer Bales
jbales@me.com
| | | LWVBC Graphic Design Contest
for Boulder County High School Students | | Calling Boulder County High School Students!
We have a big election year ahead of us. We’re inviting Boulder County High School students to put their art skills to work to design attention-getting stickers, buttons, bumper stickers, and posters to Get Out the Vote.
Please pass this notice on to the high school students in your life.
| | | November 2023 Local Elections Through the Lens of Voting Methods | | By the Voting Methods Team (website) | We all just participated in our annual November election, and the Voting Methods Team is here to analyze the election through the lens of voting methods. Boulder County election results are here.
Let’s tackle some of the questions about local elections that we’ve heard during this election season. We’ll cover questions on the city of Boulder (and touching on Broomfield), Longmont, and the St Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD), and conclude with general questions that pertain to multiple jurisdictions, including the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD).
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LWVBC has several upcoming events. As always, please check our Calendar for details, to register, and for changes and future events.
The League of Women Voters of Colorado Gun Violence Prevention Task Force invites you to a Zoom meeting on December 13 at 5:30 pm. See poster at right and register here.
The Meet Your Legislators event has been rescheduled for Saturday, January 6th, from 9:30-11:30 am at Rule4. Please register.
The Schools Team will meet Thursday, January 18 at 4:00 pm. Location is to be determined; information will be provided on the Calendar.
| | | New Minimum Wage in Boulder County | |
On November 2, the Boulder County Commissioners unanimously approved a new minimum wage for unincorporated Boulder County. See the scheduled increases: |  | The various municipalities within Boulder County will wait until at least January 1, 2025, to address the minimum wage within their communities. There will be a regional minimum wage socioeconomic analysis performed over the next several months, paid for by the various cities/towns. Hopefully, that analysis will be favorable, and the municipalities will enact minimum wage ordinances of their own.
The Boulder County ordinance envisions that the municipalities will join in 2025—thus, the “pause” in the amount of increase for 2025. This pause will allow the municipalities to raise their minimum wage by the maximum amount in 2025, and then be in step with Boulder County until 2030, when the minimum wage reaches $25/hour.
Note: the statewide minimum wage for 2024 will be $14.42/hour. The self-sufficiency wage for a typical Boulder County worker was $21.41/hour about a year ago. With estimated cost of living increases for the past year, the typical Boulder County worker would need to make about $22.50/hour to be self-sufficient in 2024.
It would be very advantageous if all of Boulder County could get on the same schedule, so it is important that the municipalities do not delay too much during the next few months. Letters and public testimony to the city/town councils will let them know how important this issue is to their constituents.
| Your Annual Gift to LWVBC | | It’s that time of year when your inbox is filled with requests for donations. Please keep LWVBC at the top of your list for meaningful gifts. With the help of dozens of volunteers this year we empowered voters and defended democracy in innumerable ways throughout Boulder County.
Membership dues are essential to our work, though they cover only 30 percent of our annual expenses. Your end of year gift makes a huge difference in helping us reach thousands of voters and address important public policy issues at the local, county, and state levels.
See below for different ways you can contribute this month. Your gift makes our work successful. We are immensely grateful for members who can contribute their time and for those who can support the league’s work with financial gifts.
Will you make a donation to help us empower voters and defend democracy?
| | | Below are six easy ways for you to support LWVBC’s ongoing work. Visit our donation page for details and to make a donation.
(2) If you are eligible for a Required Minimum Distribution of an IRA or pension plan or your employer offers matching contributions to yours, please consider donating these to the LWVBC.
(4) Give a LWVBC membership to a family member or friend who wants to strengthen our democracy. Gift a membership here.
(5) Sign up with King Soopers or Safeway for their automatic donations to LWVBC with each of your purchases. Learn more here.
We are truly grateful for all you do to support LWVBC's mission to defend democracy. Thank you!
| Post-Election Conversation & Membership Meeting | | On November 18th LWVBC hosted a Post-Election Conversation paired with the Fall Membership Meeting at Rule4 in Boulder. The use of Ranked Choice (Instant-Runoff) Voting for Boulder’s mayoral election was discussed.
Topics also included possible reasons for the failure of the 3 Longmont ballot issues, the partisan postcard mailed to City of Boulder residents for the nonpartisan mayoral race and the potential use of proportional representation for municipal governing bodies. | | | |
The event was reported in both the Daily Camera and Times Call. A recording of the discussion is on our YouTube channel.
During the Membership Meeting portion of the event, we heard a mix of work completed & on-going, including voter service, fund development, leadership openings, and energizing young voters. For more details and photographs, the full article is here.
Note that the Meet Your Legislators meeting has been rescheduled to January 6. Register here. | Results of Concurrence Vote on Local News Position | As you may have already heard from LWV of Colorado, the Local News Position from the LWV of Washington (state) was adopted.
Take a brief step back in time & recall that in the November issue of The Boulder County Voter, LWVCO was asking every local LWV in Colorado to vote on whether or not to concur with a Local News Position from the LWV of Washington. The week of November 13th, LWVCO hosted two virtual information meetings and LWVBC membership was sent an email with a link to an online voting form. The thirty-eight LWVBC members submitting a vote were unanimously in favor of adopting the position.
Wondering where to find what positions the League already has? Go to LWVBC.org and click on Get to Know Us > About the League. Scroll down to Programs and Policy Positions where you’ll find links to our local positions for LWVBC, state positions for LWVCO, and national positions for LWVUS.
If you have questions about positions and how LWV arrives at them, uses them, etc. please contact me at advocacy@lwvbc.org. If you’d like to learn more about positions & advocacy, be sure to attend the LWVBC Positions for Action all-member meeting coming up in early 2024.
|  | Climate Action Team CAT Tips | HOLIDAY TIPS from CAT
Well the holidays are upon us and along with all the shopping and wrapping and stuffing, there are a variety of tips to share, some I am sure you know, but some may be new.
If you are doing cooking that includes fats, oils and greases (FOG), keep these out of your kitchen pipes and the municipal sewer system: Can it – pour FOG into a can; Cool it down; Trash it by throwing full can into the trash.
A lot of spills occur during the holidays. “Flushable” wipes are misleading and should not be flushed down the toilet as they do not break down, and instead cause clogs. Put in trash.
Recycle like a pro: Leave caps on plastic bottles, jugs and jars
Separate paperboard frozen food boxes from internal food vessel. Paperboard goes in trash and food vessel in recycling.
Recycle plastic film wrap from toilet paper and paper towels at CharM (6400 Arapahoe) or grocery store drop off locations.
Lotion and other bottles with pump lids can be recycled, but pump lids must go in the trash.
Check with your local municipality on whether they will have Christmas tree compost service available. If they don’t, you can compost your tree at Materials Management Drop-off Center, 2051 63rd St., Boulder.
SAVE THE DATE. Saturday January 27, 2024 for a program on Turf Removal and Update on Xeriscaping.
| A Better Way to Report Election Contest Results:
Part 1 - Boulder County’s Multi-Winner Contests | | By Celeste Landry, Mark Parsons, and Neal McBurnett |
Look in the February 2024 Voter for Part 2, explaining the need to apply the practice presented here (of reporting results as a percentage of ballots) to all contests, and how this practice enhances election security and helps us to better understand the electorate’s opinions.
| "Candidate vote counts in multi-winner plurality contests should be reported as a percent of ballots for better public understanding of support for candidates." So says our updated LWVBC’s Voting Methods position. In the November election, Boulder County had 4 multi-winner contests: Boulder Council, Lafayette Council, Superior Home Rule Charter Commission and a vote-for-up-to-2 contest for Louisville Council Ward 3.
Let’s look at the bar graphs of these multi-winner contests. Boulder County Elections included the number of votes for each candidate. You can see those numbers at the Elections website here. In the graphs below, blue indicates the current reporting (by percent of votes) and red indicates the reporting (by percent of ballots) recommended by our updated position.
| Welcome to these new members who joined in August: Susan Moling and Reece McKay.
Thank you to all who renewed their LWVBC membership in the last several months. Most of our members have a renewal date in September or October. Your membership keeps us strong!
In Memory: Two long term members of LWVBC passed away in the last months. We honor Louise Lindsey and Norma Burkepile for their years of membership and service to the League.
Longevity Recognition: At the November 18 Community Conversation and Membership meeting, longevity awards were given in recognition of years of LWVBC membership.
Lifetime Members with 50 years of membership or more: Elinor Baron, Judith Reid, Joyce Davies, Janet Gollin, Anne Norwood, Joanne Turner, Leatrice Segel, Virginia Boucher, Nancy Allen, Anne Holmes, Louisa Young, Flodie Anderson, Karlene Ferguson, Betty Wickstrom, Lynn Whitman, Ellen Gille, Marsha Caplan, Joan McConkey, Deborah Hayes and Lois LInsky.
45 Years of Membership: Prue Larson
35 Years of Membership: Janice Hartley and Marjorie Maagoe
25 Years of Membership: Nancy Herzog and Doris Flax
15 Years of Membership: Mickey Greenberg and Katherine Young
10 Years of Membership: Judith Beerbaum
5 Years of Membership: Tara Scott, Virginia Gebhart, Carol Brown, Molly Saunders, Stacie Johnson, Molly Hardman, Hannah Rain Crowe, Linda Katalenich, Elizabeth Schmidt and Barbara Brown.
Merit Awards: Each year. LWVBC pays special tribute to members and leaders who have gone above and beyond to further the goals and support the important work of our League. It’s not too early to think about who those special members are. There will be a call for merit award nominations in the February 2024 Voter. Awards are given at the Annual Membership meeting in May. The Awards are: Community Partner; Member of the Year; Team Leader of the Year and Team Member of the Year.
Student Members: We love our student members and want more of them—lots more! Student memberships are free and, in return, we ask for 20 hours of service to the League over a year. Student members can be middle school, high school or college/higher education students. Current members can encourage their children and grandchildren to join the League by talking about the work of the League, bringing them to a LWVBC event, and sharing your views on the important issues in our community and nation.
We have $500 student scholarships available to graduating high school seniors or students already pursuing higher education, whether it is college or a technical school. More information on student scholarships will be available in the February 2024 Voter.
We Need YOU! League of Women Voters is a membership organization. That means that anything we do or accomplish is done by our members - YOU. It means participating in Membership meetings; taking part in League activities; keeping up with what is happening via the lwvbc.org website and VOTER newsletter; taking action on League issues; and, taking part in the development of our positions upon which action/advocacy is based. It also means stepping up and into leadership positions within LWVBC. We Need YOU!
Your Nominating Committee at Work: LWVBC’s Nominating Committee will begin its work in January, with the goal of providing a slate of candidates for members to elect at the Annual Meeting in May. The Nominating Committee is made up of: Peggy Leech (Chair), Laura Coates, Emma Piller, Martine Elianor, and Susan Curtis. We are looking for volunteers to fulfill leadership roles, potentially including co-leaders or leaders-in-training. Some roles are on the board of directors, and others are off board. We can be flexible!
Speaking from personal experience, these opportunities can be quite rewarding, as well as providing a good opportunity for growth. And LWVBC depends on its leaders as well as its many wonderful volunteers. If you are interested in serving, or know of some good candidates, please reach out to members of the Nominating Committee or send Peggy an email: pegleech@aol.com.
LWVBC member Celeste Landry's daughter has another article in The New Yorker of interest to League: Who Gets to Play in the Women's Leagues? What a blood test taught me about testosterone, athleticism, and sex, by S.C. Cornell
| Ranked-Voting Initiatives Are Meeting Resistance, But the Resistance Is Mostly about a Blanket Primary, the Caucus System and Vacancy Committees
| | By Celeste Landry, Jeanne Clelland and Gaythia Weis | Instant-Runoff Voting or IRV for “covered” general elections is the focus of a set of initiatives being proposed for the 2024 state ballot. (IRV is the single-winner form of Ranked Choice Voting that was used in Boulder’s mayoral contest.) The Choose-One blanket primary election and Final-Four IRV general election being proposed started being used in Alaska in 2022. It works this way:
Primary: All the candidates run against each other with their party labels or their Unaffiliated label. All voters, regardless of party registration or lack of affiliation, can vote in the primary. Voters may only vote for one candidate in this Choose-One Plurality election. The top 4 vote-getters advance to the general election. Unlike the current primary elections, more than one person from a party may advance to the general election.
General: The general election, with the top 4 candidates from the primary, is conducted using IRV.
Minor parties in Alaska were unsuccessful in their lawsuit to stop a blanket primary, which forces minor parties to compete in the primary and no longer guarantees minor parties a spot on the general election ballot. A Colorado Libertarian Party leader also rejected the Final-Four idea a few years ago when it was floated by RCV for Colorado.
The ideas above are in all three initiatives and form the core of Initiative #100. The other two initiatives are more expansive and include the following additional provisions:
- #98: Eliminate caucuses, assemblies and party primary elections for “covered” offices. All candidates for “covered” offices must petition, i.e., collect signatures, to get on the ballot. Hold special elections to fill all vacancies in elected legislative office
- #99: Same as #98 plus use IRV in the presidential general contest. (The initiatives are silent on presidential primary elections.)
The standard initiative strategy is to present a few versions, and then put forward the variation that seems to have the most promise for a statewide signature-gathering campaign.
The major political parties are opposed to doing away with caucuses, assemblies and partisan primary elections. The county clerks will probably push back against holding a special election at an odd time of the year in order to fill a legislative vacancy (as Longmont found out when they wanted the Boulder County Clerk to hold an early 2022 special election to fill a council vacancy).
The initiatives only affect covered offices:
- US senator and US representative
- CO senators and CO representatives
- state officers: governor/lt gov, sec of state, treasurer, atty general, state board of ed, and CU regents
The LWVBC Voting Methods Team and the LWVCO Alternative Voting Methods Task Force are keeping an eye on these proposed initiatives. By the way, one of the two designated agents for the initiatives is Robbie Moreland from Fort Collins, whose picture was in the Oct 2021 LWVBC Voter newsletter. | |