The Denver City Council on Monday night narrowly rejected a ballot measure that would ask voters to convert most city elections to ranked-choice voting, while advancing a potential change to how its two at-large members are elected.
The ranked-choice voting proposal was rejected 7-6 on its first reading. The at-large proposal — also a proposed charter amendment for the November ballot — passed its first vote 7-6. It advances to a final vote next Monday.
With that measure, Denver voters may get a chance to fundamentally change the way two of their council members are chosen. The measure would require at-large council members to win a majority of votes rather than a plurality, a significant change in the dynamics around races for those offices.
The late-night meeting brought rare moments of tension between the 13 council members, two of whom could be directly impacted by the changes.
“This is unkind legislation and somebody has to be willing to name it,” said Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, who represents northeast District 8.
The proposal would split the council’s at-large council positions into separate seats. Under current rules, those members are the top two vote-getters in a single question on the ballot. The proposal would instead create “At-Large A” and “At-Large B” ballot races, requiring candidates in each to secure a majority to win.
The two at-large council members, Sarah Parady and Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, both won their seats with less than 25% of voters’ support in 2023. They both voted against the changes Monday.
Joining them in voting no were Lewis, Paul Kashmann, Jamie Torres and council President Amanda Sandoval.
The sponsors, Councilmen Kevin Flynn and Darrell Watson, said the change would require the at-large members to be elected by the same clear majority as the council’s 11 district-based members.
The change could also decrease undervoting, which the sponsors said is caused in part by voters selecting only one candidate instead of the two allowed to prevent any other candidates from getting support.
Lewis, however, said she thought the proposal was targeted specifically at Parady and Gonzales-Gutierrez. They and Lewis are some of the council’s more progressive members.
“This policy feels like it unfairly targets council people who are actually incredibly effective and are moving their city in a direction that I think a lot of folks who have been in power are having a really tough time adjusting to,” she said.
The members representing districts and the Denver mayor, the clerk and recorder, and the auditor are elected through a run-off system. That means that if there is not a majority winner in the initial election, the top two vote-getters in a race compete in another election.
For the city to adopt the change, the council would have to approve the concept on second reading next week and a majority of Denver voters would have to vote in favor of it.
The council allowed public comment on each of the election proposals Monday night.
Instant-runoff rejection
Later in the evening, the council narrowly rejected the larger ranked-choice voting election proposal. It would have applied to all but the city’s at-large council races, starting with the next city election in 2027.
The system, sometimes called instant-runoff voting, allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference, rather than choosing only one. If no candidate receives more than 50% of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated. Then the second-ranked options on those ballots are counted.
The process continues until one candidate has the majority of votes.
The concept has gained popularity in recent years and is now used in dozens of jurisdictions, including New York City, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Maine and Alaska. Colorado voters rejected a statewide version of the concept in 2024, but Denver voters narrowly supported that measure, Proposition 131.
Parady and Watson, who sponsored the city version, said the change would make elections more representative of constituents, among other possible benefits.
“This process is going to force candidates to dig into issues — to go into every precinct, every neighborhood in their districts — to ensure that they’re listening to voices, paying attention, incorporating nuanced policy decisions (and) not ideologies,” Watson said.
Flynn, one of the most vocal opponents of the idea, said he didn’t see what problem the proposal was seeking to fix. He suggested it could create new problems.
“Denver deserves better than this,” he said. “Denver elections already have everything that RCV backers say they want to bring to Denver.”
Under the proposal, voters would have been able to rank up to six candidates in each race. It was rejected 7-6, with Flynn joined in voting no by Torres, Flor Alvidrez, Stacie Gilmore, Diana Romero Campbell and Amanda Sawyer.
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