Election Primer, Part 1

O.K. Denver and Colorado voters, a spoonful at a time makes the medicine go down. Some efficient people have already voted. Congrats! Nothing to see here for you. For the rest of us, we need refresher/explanations in small doses.

Ballots have been mailed. Ours came four days ago. Not registered to vote? You have until October 31 to do so. October 31 is also the deadline to put your completed ballot in the mail. I prefer secure ballot drop-off boxes, which you can use until 7 p.m. on November 8, Election Day. There’s a list of 42 boxes in Denver, mostly at libraries and rec centers. You can also vote in-person. All that info comes with your ballot, one copy in English, one in Spanish.

And guess what? All recounts and investigations have shown NO voter fraud in Colorado. Again.

Denver’s ballot is six pages long. Two pages of people to vote for and without the judges (oh, the judges!) it’d be one page. Four pages of ballot measures.

Sources of information about ballot measures: News media, of course. “Next” on C. 9 is covering every ballot issue, one per night, pro and con, for example. The Colorado Blue Book of ballot info and your local jurisdiction info book also came in the mail. My local library has extra copies of both. I’d never rely on political ads for information.

Ballot measures are of several kinds. “Referred” measures come from the general assembly or city council and are listed by letter. “Initiated” measures come from citizen petitions and are listed numerically. Measures proposing a change to the state constitution are identified as “amendments.” Measures asking for a change to Colorado laws are identified as “propositions.”

The amendments are on page two of Denver ballots, following the judges. Amendments need 55% of the vote to pass. The Blue Book gives the pros and cons for all of them.

Amendment D. Referred. It requires an amendment to the state constitution to move judges from the 18th judicial district to the newly created 23rd judicial district. I don’t know why, but it does. Judges must live in their district, but the 23rd partly overlaps the 18th. Judges needing to be moved already live in the new 23rd. A housekeeping measure, I’d say.

Amendment E. Referred. The state constitution has a homestead exemption for seniors and veterans that reduces the property tax on homes. It exempts 50% of the first 200,000 of the home’s value from taxation, so saves a few hundred from tax bills. (The Blue Book has a table of amounts.) Surviving spouses of military members who died in the line of duty or because of service-related injury or disease are not covered. This amendment adds them.

Amendment F. Referred. The bingo amendment. Like E, it changes something already in place in our constitution. Charitable organizations (not just churches) must be operating for five years before applying for bingo-raffle licenses and bingo-raffle workers must be volunteers. The amendment reduces it to three years and allows workers to be paid.

Follow me for Part 2: Oh, those judges! And Propositions FF, GG, 121 – 123. Ain’t this fun?

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