Colorado Proposition 131 – RCV & Top 4 Primaries

If passed, proposition 131 will replace major party primary elections with an open, all candidate blanket primary. Each voter will vote for one candidate. The four candidates with the most votes will advance to a runoff election in November. The runoff election will use Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), also known as Ranked Choice Voting (RCV).

Covered offices:
US Senator, Representative to the US House of Representatives, State Senator and Representatives serving in the General Assembly, and state officers, including Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and State Treasurer.

Proposition 131 was designated as Ballot Initiative 310 during the petition campaign to qualify it for the ballot.

Three Primary Dilemmas

1 – Primary elections give major party nominees a massive publicity advantage over third-party and independent candidates. Primaries certify their winners as the major party candidates, the only candidates with a real chance of winning.

2 – Most districts are safe for one of the major parties. Small sets of partisan voters decide elections in the primaries.

3 – In contested districts, the spoiler effect ensures that only major party candidates have a fair chance to win.

Current Party Rules

Major parties meet qualifications based on voter support. The benefits: they can take part in state run primaries. The winners gain publicity, momentum, and a surge in campaign donations.

Minor parties meet lower voter support levels. Election ballots identify minor party nominees, but they cannot take part in state run primary elections.

Third-party and independent candidates must petition on to the ballot. They have no chance to gain the publicity, momentum and money major party primary winners receive. Worse, voters seldom vote for third-party or independent candidates for fear of the spoiler effect.

Proportional Representation would solve these problems, but it will not be on the ballot this year. Will Proposition 131 help?

To create a great election system for Colorado, we propose several changes to 131 below.

Top Four Primaries – the Alaskan Model

131 is based on the Alaskan model, a “nonpartisan,” two round system. A blanket primary open to all candidates replaces traditional party primaries. Political parties must nominate their candidates “in house,” reducing voter input.

The top four candidates advance to the second round, where voters use Instant Runoff Voting (IRV or RCV) to choose the winner. Top Four primaries favor well-funded independents.

Alaskan Model: Nonpartisan or Confused-Partisan?

Supporters claim that Alaskan model elections are nonpartisan because the ballots do not show which candidates are party nominees. In truth, the ballots are intentionally confusing.

Instead of party nominations, Alaskan model ballots display party affiliations taken from each candidate’s voter registration record.

This is how eight Republicans, three Democrats, three nonpartisans, two undeclared and one Alaskan Independent appeared on the primary ballot of the Alaskan 2022 US Senate race. The ballots in both rounds did not show party nominations.

Advantage Wealthy Independents

The confusion will annoy voters and harm party nominees. Candidates from the same party will split votes and campaign contributions.

Who benefits from this mess? Well-funded independents.

Petition Problems

In the Alaskan Model, all candidates, including party nominees, must collect signatures to get on the 1st round primary ballot. Parties still need to jump through hoops to maintain their legal status as political parties.

Independent candidates only need to collect signatures. They avoid the hoops and the work of running a party. Nor are they responsible to party members.

The volume of petition activity will drive up the cost of signatures. A voter can only sign for one candidate in each race. Signing for two candidates running for the same office will invalidate the second signature. This will be a common occurrence.

Major parties and well-funded independents will get their signatures. Third parties and most independents will struggle.

For fairness, the nominees of all qualified parties should be on the primary ballot. Require only independent candidates to gather signatures in lieu of the qualifications and responsibilities of running a political party.

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)

Alaskan Model proponents have chosen Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), also known as Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), for the Top Four and Final Five runoff elections.

IRV should comply with state constitutions that require a winning candidate to receive the “highest,” “greatest” or “largest” number of votes, or “a plurality of votes”. This is often litigated, other voting methods may also comply.

Four candidate IRV races can be spoiled, especially if two or more candidates are from the same party or share similar views. IRV’s problems are predicted by Arrows Theorem.[1]

The First Top Four Election

In the first Alaskan Top Four election, Sarah Palin, through no fault of her own, spoiled the chances of fellow Republican Nick Begish, allowing Democrat Mary Peltola to win.[2]

IRV is an improvement over traditional Choose One voting, but IRV does not eliminate the spoiler effect.

Begish was eliminated because he had the fewest 1st choice votes. His supporters gave 27,053 second choice votes to Palin and 15,467 second choice votes to Peltola, enough to move Peltola over 50% to win the election.

IRV 1st Choice Votes
Peltola (D) 75,799
Palin (R) 58,973
Begich (R) 53,810

2nd choice votes from ballots that ranked Begish first.
Peltola (D) 15,467
Palin (R) 27,053

The 15,467 votes for Peltola put her over 50% for the win.

Vote Totals after two rounds
Peltola (D) 91,266 – 51.5% – Winner
Palin (R) 86,026 – 48.5%

Ballots showed Begich would have won 1 on 1 races against both Peltola and Palin. Peltola would have beat Palin 1 on 1. If 2,582 or more Palin supporters had ranked Begich 1st, Palin would have been eliminated before Begish and the 2nd choice votes of her supporters would have carried Begich to victory. This gave the Republican Party a case of strategic regret.

This was a major upset. In a May 2022 poll, Peltola trailed Santa Claus, but she came back to win. Santa finished a disappointing sixth in the 1st round blanket primary. He was ahead of 42 other candidates. Santa Claus endorsed Peltola in the 2nd round runoff election. BTW Santa Claus lives in North Pole, Alaska, where he served on the city council. He looks just like you would expect him to look.

For more info about IRV, please visit our Instant Runoff Voting page.

The Purpose of Top Four Elections

Unite America is the leading proponent of “Top Four Primaries”. From their website: “Unite America is a philanthropic venture fund that invests in nonpartisan election reform to foster a more representative and functional government.”[3]

Unite America was founded in 2014 as the Centrist Project. Executive Director, Nick Troiano said “It sought to elect a handful of independent Senate candidates who could form a “fulcrum” to control the balance of power and leverage their influence to advance bipartisan solutions.”[4]

This is a brilliant strategy. A small group of wealthy unaffiliated candidates (Donor Class Light) gains great power without the bother of forming a political party. As proposed in CO Proposition 131, Top Four is rigged for well-heeled independents.

Unite America founder Charles Wheelan laid out the plan and policies in his 2014 book “The Centrist Manifesto”. The plan included a formal Centrist Party, but that appears to be on hold.

Wheelan’s centrist policies include protecting the environment and support for gay rights. He is skeptical of unions, particularly teachers’ unions. He believes in the importance of the wealthy and the benefits of free trade. For a contrasting view, read The Second Law of Economics and Why We Vote – Capitalism for the People.

The views of wealthy independents will vary; however, we can expect most of them to be loyal to their economic class. Should Wheelan and his friends hold the balance of power in America? The Centrist Manifesto eBook at Kobo

Even with its flaws and dubious motive, the Alaskan model might be an improvement over the status quo. Our current system favors major parties. The Alaskan model favors well-funded independents. Both are unfair to third parties and under-funded independents.

Common Ground

While we are not enthused with the United America version of blanket primaries, nor their choice of RCV, we applaud their support for proportional representation. They worked with Protect Democracy on an important report, “Towards Proportional Representation for the U.S. House“. Unite America Co-Chair Kent Thiry led successful election reform ballot initiatives including tax reform, semi-open primaries, and a citizen’s redistricting commission.

Four Changes to Improve the Top Four System

1 – Treat major and minor parties equally. Place the nominees of all qualified parties on the 1st round ballot without signature requirements.

2 – Modest signature requirements for independent candidates. Signatures would be in lieu of the qualifications and responsibilities of political parties.

3 – Display party nominations on the ballots.

4 – To avoid the spoiler effect, replace Instant Runoff Voting with a Score voting method.

These changes would give Colorado the best voting system in the nation. We call it Neutral Open Primaries.

Neutral Open Primaries

Neutral Open Primaries are fair to all candidates, including third parties and independents.

In a Neutral Open Primary voters will choose four candidates to compete in the general election. A Neutral Open Primary will include major party nominees, third-party nominees, and independent candidates. Political parties will nominate their candidates “in house,” unless a primary election is held before the neutral primary.

Each voter has one vote which can be cast for any candidate. Ballots will inform voters which candidates are party nominees.

Please visit our Primary Reform page for more information.

Expanded Primaries

Political parties choose their nominees “in house” under the Alaskan Top Four model. Most voters are excluded.

To give voters a voice in the nomination process, we propose Extended Primaries. Like our current primaries, Extended Primaries will hold separate races for each party, including third parties. Independent candidates will compete in a separate race.

An unprecedented opportunity for third parties and independents to make their case to the voters is created. They will share in the primary election publicity and successful candidates will head into the next round with a win under their belts. The results will be nominees for parties large and small, plus an independent champion.

Each party can hold open, semi-open, or closed primary races. An unaffiliated voter could vote in any open or semi-open race, or they could vote for an independent candidate. A party member could vote in their party race or any open primary race, or for an independent candidate.

2 or 3 Round Options

Instead traditional or blanket primaries, we could use Expanded Primaries in a two-round system. If we also replace Choose 1 voting in the final round, it would create a two round system far superior to our current system.

To create a three-round system that gives voters maximum control, we can hold Expanded Primaries before Neutral Open Primaries.

Score Voting

Score voting in the final round will allow voters to judge all candidates and prevent spoilers. Score is easy. Instructions for Score voting:
Cast 5 votes for your favorite candidate.
Cast 0 votes for the worst candidate.
Cast votes for the other candidates in comparison.
Ties are allowed. Blanks equal 0 votes.

In compliance with the Colorado Constitution, the candidate with the highest number of votes wins. We should make this change regardless of the primary system.