Dear Editor,
In the 2020 General Election, there was record turnout of 87% of Colorado’s registered voters. In the 2020 Colorado Primaries, 39.96% of Colorado’s registered voters turned out to vote, less than half the turnout in the General Election. This is a HUGE and significant difference. It raises an important concern if, as the Executive Director of Unite America observed, “Not only do few voters participate in [Primary] elections, but those who do tend to be the most partisan and ideological––skewing election outcomes and governing incentives” (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/party-primaries-must-go/618428/).
I attended my first Party caucus almost 20 years ago. Frankly, I was disturbed seeing democracy in action. The process seemed anything but democratic; it felt as though I was being steered to decisions that had already been made. It would take me 12 years to give the process another chance and to attend caucus and assembly again.
The point is: whether the problem is a stagnant primary system or fringe voters in a gerrymandered world, Proposition 131 provides an alternative. It provides one Primary open to all registered voters and to all candidates regardless of party affiliation with the top four vote-getters advancing to the General Election and with final-four ranked choice voting used to determine who has the majority vote. This process would affect the races for U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, Colorado University board of regents, state board of education, and state legislature. The presidential race is not included.
Information is available at https://yeson131.com/, sponsored by Fair Vote, as well as at https://www.uniteamerica.org/. For the more motivated, there is also the book, "The Primary Solution" (2024). We Coloradans are smart. Isn’t it time for us to be able to vote for the best qualified person, rather than for a party?
Denise Fazio, Ed.D.
Longmont
