Colorado Lower Voting Age Requirement Amendment (2018)
| Colorado Lower Voting Age Requirement Amendment | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Election date November 6, 2018 | |
| Topic Elections and campaigns | |
| Status Not on the ballot | |
| Type Constitutional amendment | Origin Citizens |
The Colorado Lower Voting Age Requirement Amendment (#168) was not on the ballot in Colorado as an initiated constitutional amendment on November 6, 2018.
This measure would have amended the constitution to lower the voting age in Colorado from 18 to 16 for all local and state elections. [1][2]
Text of measure
Full text
- The full text of the measure is available here.
Constitutional changes
- See also: Article VII, Colorado Constitution
The measure would have amended section 1 of Article VII of the state constitution. The following UNDERLINED AND CAPITALIZED text would have been added, and struck-through text would have been deleted:[1]
Every resident of the United States STATE OF COLORADO who has attained the age of eighteen SIXTEEN years, has resided in this state for such time as may be prescribed by law, and has been duly registered as a voter if required by law shall be qualified to vote at all LOCAL AND STATE elections.[3]
Path to the ballot
The state process
In Colorado, the number of signatures required to qualify an initiated constitutional amendment for the ballot is equal to 5 percent of the total number of votes cast for the office of Colorado secretary of state in the preceding general election. For initiated constitutional amendments, signature gathering must be distributed to include signatures equal to 2 percent of the registered voters who live in each of the state's 35 senate districts.
State law provides that petitioners have six months to collect signatures after the ballot language and title are finalized. State statutes require a completed signature petition to be filed three months and three weeks before the election at which the measure would appear on the ballot. The Constitution, however, states that the petition must be filed three months before the election at which the measure would appear. The secretary of state generally lists a date that is three months before the election as the filing deadline.
Constitutional amendments in Colorado require a 55% supermajority vote to be ratified and added to the state constitution. This requirement was added by Amendment 71 of 2016.
The requirements to get an initiated constitutional amendment certified for the 2018 ballot:
- Signatures: 98,492 valid signatures were required.
- Deadline: The deadline to submit signatures was August 6, 2018.
The secretary of state is responsible for signature verification. Verification is conducted through a review of petitions regarding correct form and then a 5 percent random sampling verification. If the sampling projects between 90 percent and 110 percent of required valid signatures, a full check of all signatures is required. If the sampling projects more than 110 percent of the required signatures, the initiative is certified. If less than 90 percent, the initiative fails.
Details about this initiative
- Carl E. Reichley II and Rachelle L. Reichley submitted this initiative on April 6, 2018.[2]
- The title setting was denied for this initiative on April 18, 2018, because the representatives failed to appear at the title hearing.[2]
- The measure did not qualify for the November 2018 ballot because it had either (a) never been cleared for signature gathering, (b) was abandoned by sponsors, or (c) otherwise reached a certain stage in the initiative process, but did not make the ballot.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Colorado Secretary of State, "Initiative #168 Complete Text," accessed February 23, 2018
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Colorado Secretary of State, "2017-2018 Initiative Filings, Agendas & Results," accessed February 23, 2018
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source.
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