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Colorado Special Elections for Legislative Vacancies Initiative (2024)

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Colorado Special Elections for Legislative Vacancies Initiative
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Election date
November 5, 2024
Topic
State legislatures measures
Status
Not on the ballot
Type
Constitutional amendment
Origin
Citizens

The Colorado Special Elections for Legislative Vacancies Initiative was not on the ballot in Colorado as an initiated constitutional amendment on November 5, 2024.

This initiative would have eliminated using a vacancy committee selected by a political party to fill a legislative vacancy and require a special election to fill legislative vacancies.[1]

Text of measure

Ballot title

The ballot title for the initiative would have been as follows:[1]

Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution eliminating the use of a vacancy committee selected by a political party to fill certain vacancies in the state legislature, and, in connection therewith, requiring a special election to fill such vacancy?

[2]

Full text

The full text is available here.

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing the initiative process in Colorado

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 2024 ballot:

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

  • The initiative was filed by Charles Dukes and Reoberta Lynn Moreland on January 5, 2024. Ballot language was issued for the initiative on January 18, 2024.[1]
  • Sponsors did not submit signatures by the deadline on August 5, 2024.[1]

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Colorado Secretary of State, "Initiative Filings," accessed April 21, 2023
  2. Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.