Week 14: Lawsuit Challenges Disenfranchisement by Party Affiliation

Dear Colorado Voter,

Last week's email discussed two 2025 Colorado bills that allow the government to disenfranchise voters in non-primary elections based on party affiliation. I'm so pleased to announce that on Friday LWVCO filed a lawsuit challenging this form of disenfranchisement. https://www.lwv.org/newsroom/press-releases/league-women-voters-colorado-challenges-one-party-elections-law-federal

I heard about the lawsuit an hour after mentioning these unconstitutional elections in an interview with Mandy Connell on KOA radio 850AM. Listen to the interview here: https://koacolorado.iheart.com/featured/mandy-connell/content/2026-05-15-88-the-mandy-connell-podcast-05-15-26-interview-celeste-landry-is-running-f/

Colorado's primary election is June 30th, and ballots to overseas voters have already gone out. If you belong to the Forward Party, like me, you won't get a primary election ballot. The Forward Party actually invites its members to temporarily become Unaffiliated – change your registration by June 8, 2026 at https://govotecolorado.gov/ – so you receive the Republican and Democratic Party primary ballots and can vote either one; alternatively, Unaffiliated voters can request a Unity Party ballot from their county elections office and vote it.

I foresee some "vote splitting" in both the 3-candidate Republican gubernatorial primary and the 4-candidate Democratic attorney-general primary, meaning no candidate gets a majority of the vote in these contests. Vote splitting can elect the least preferred candidate!

When there are more than 2 candidates in a contest, a majority-winner is not guaranteed, even with a better voting method – but a better voting method, such as ranking, scoring, or thumbs-up/thumbs-down (approval) voting, provides a more complete and nuanced insight into the will of the electorate. Better voting methods reduce vote splitting and result in better representation.

When we are electing members of a council, commission, or legislative body – so not a unique office like Secretary of State – then proportional representation (PR) is the best representation option available. PR is widely used in nations around the world.

Lee Drutman has long been a proponent of PR. I wrote a review for LWV of his Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop book. He has more recently been advocating for the simple Open Party List PR system, like when I met him on Zoom in April 2024. I admire his work. He was interviewed on the Ezra Klein show this week about PR as a solution to the gerrymandering wars. I listened to the show at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-end-the-gerrymandering-doom-loop-forever/id1548604447 or you can watch it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWN4Gsk9Ms0

With enthusiasm and purpose,

Celeste