Updated at 11:49 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2025
Denver City Council on Monday rejected a proposal to bring ranked choice voting to Colorado’s largest city, but moved forward with another change to the city elections.
The effort to bring ranked choice voting to Denver failed in a 6-7 vote. The proposal would have converted all races in Denver to a ranked choice model, with voters ranking up to six candidates for elected positions like mayor, council member and city clerk.
If council had approved the measure, it would have gone before Denver voters this November.
Denver voters have shown some interest in ranked choice voting — it was one of the few counties where a majority of voters approved Prop. 131, an earlier statewide proposal for ranked choice voting.
But with the council’s action on Monday, the measure will not appear on the ballot this November.
Meanwhile, the council advanced a proposal that would significantly change at-large council elections.
The at-large reform was advanced by the council in a narrow 7-6 vote. It faces one more vote before it is passed to Denver voters.
If approved by voters this November, the measure would split the at-large council election into two separate races.
Currently, all at-large candidates run in a single pool, with the top two candidates taking seats. The proposal would instead have candidates run in two different at-large races, with the winner of each race taking a seat on the council.
Ranked choice voting fails.
The council voted 6-7 to reject the ranked-choice measure. Under the proposal, ranked choice voting would have taken effect in 2027 for all city elections. The change would have required the approval of a majority of voters in the city’s November election.
Under the RCV model, voters in future elections would have been allowed to rank up to six candidates in each race. Those rankings would have been combined through a counting process to determine the winner.
The measure was opposed by council members Flynn, Flor Alvidrez, Stacie Gilmore, Diana Romero Campbell, Amanda Sawyer, Jamie Torres and Amanda Sandoval.
The proposed system is also known as instant-runoff voting because it eliminates the need for the city to hold secondary runoff elections.
Currently, if no candidate takes more than half the votes, the city must hold a runoff election between the top two candidates. In ranked choice voting, that isn’t necessary, because the winner can be determined based on voters’ second-choice (and beyond) rankings.
Supporters argue ranked-choice elections are cheaper and more efficient. They also argue that ranking gives voters more freedom of expression — allowing them to vote for a less-popular candidate without fear of “wasting” their vote, since the rest of their rankings could still affect the election.
While the system is still relatively new across the U.S., some voters in cities that have adopted the system have embraced it. Meanwhile, voters in Alaska recently decided to keep the state’s system of ranked choice voting.
“How can our elections be improved? I think the answers are in for ranked choice,” said Councilmember Sarah Parady. “They're in from all over the country. We're not on the cutting edge of this.”
Maine and Hawaii also use ranked choice voting for some elections, but voters in several other states rejected proposals with RCV components last year. Among them was Colorado, although Denver was one of a few counties that voted in favor of Prop. 131.
Cory Montreuil, a District 8 resident who works as an educator, said he and his wife chose to not vote in the 2023 municipal runoff mayoral election between Mike Johnston and Kelly Brough. Progressive candidate Lisa Calderón missed out on the runoff after finishing about 3,100 votes short of Brough.
“I did my civic duty, I researched, I listened and I voted my values,” Montreuil said. “We are going to continue concerning ourselves with electability until we stop forcing the electorate to choose the lesser of two evils and start listening to the types of candidates they're ranking.”
Critics say ranked choice voting is too complicated and could disenfranchise voters who fill out their rankings incorrectly, or if they simply fail to rank the most popular candidates. Councilmember Flynn pointed to Denver’s 2023 mayoral election.
“We had 17 candidates for mayor, but you can only rank six,” he said. “Our current system gave every voter another shot at the two finalists, even if they hadn't voted for them in the first election. If we had used it in ‘23, any voter who did not include Mike Johnston or Kelly Brough in their rankings would have been disenfranchised.”
The measure was sponsored by council members Darrell Watson and Parady.
At-large changes take a step forward.
Under current rules, all candidates running for council’s two at-large positions compete on one ballot. The two candidates with the most votes are elected to the two seats, regardless of whether they obtain the majority of the vote.
The ordinance — spearheaded by council members Flynn and Watson — would split that election into two separate races — At-Large A and At-Large B.
The proposal advanced on a 7-6 vote. Council must vote one more time on the measure before it will go before voters for the Nov. 4 election this year.
The measure was opposed by council members Parady, Torres, Sandoval, Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez and Shontel Lewis.
Supporters of the ordinance said the current system is confusing and holds the at-large offices to a different standard, since other council members must be elected with a majority of votes. They also argued the change could increase diversity in the elected body.
“As far as diversity of choice, in the last 14 elections, that was 54 years, only three people of color have been elected at-large,” Flynn said. “It's largely been won by white candidates and it's because of the citywide vote for two on a single ballot.”
Flynn said prospective candidates would be able to choose between three races — their district and the two at-large positions — allowing incumbents to be more easily challenged. He defended the current system of runoff elections, which has produced the current roster of City Council, the most diverse in the body’s history.
Supporters included former at-large council member Debbie Ortega.
“I think this measure makes perfect sense,” she said. “I never really understood why the at-large was structured differently.”
Meanwhile, critics said the proposed solution is equally confusing and doesn’t solve the problem.
“What if my favorite two candidates are on the same slot?” said District 8 resident Marilyn Ackerman. “I will have to only choose one, and may not vote then in slot B. Same problem, I will not be voting in slot B. Denver voters should reject this measure as an attack on our democratic values masked as reform.”
Councilmember Shontel Lewis described the proposal as “unkind legislation” that was written to target current at-large councilmembers Sarah Parady and Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, who are seen as more progressive.
“We aren't fixing anything here,” Lewis said. “We're gaming the system in order to have a specific result for folks who are used to having power in our city, and that could potentially go away. That's wrong.”
Denver Clerk and Recorder Paul López had proposed an alternate solution — staggering the elections for the two at-large seats in different years — but said his office would be able to carry out the system if approved.
