Snarkvark @ PoliSnark.comI realize that opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one and they all smell just as bad. But this opinion on Prop 131 especially stinks. Bad.
As a not-so-gentle reminder: Prop 131 is a dumpster fire wrapped in a bow and sold to us as “election reform.” The article hypes this thing up as a cure for political gatekeeping, but let’s be real—this is a billionaire-funded mess designed to hijack elections. The pitch is all about giving voters “more choice” through open primaries and ranked-choice voting. But behind that shiny veneer is a system that’s clunky, confusing, and primed to disenfranchise voters while making sure the rich assholes bankrolling it stay in control.
The biggest cheerleader for this nonsense? Kent Thiry, a Denver-based multimillionaire who’s sunk over $1.4 million into this campaign, with backup from Netflix’s Reed Hastings and Walmart heir Ben Walton. These guys aren’t doing this out of the kindness of their hearts—they want to reshape elections to benefit their agenda. The whole thing reeks of elitism in the name of centrism. Oh, you thought it was about “giving power to the people”? Nah, it’s about keeping actual grassroots candidates out and ensuring the politically connected stay on top.
Prop 131 eliminates closed primaries and throws every candidate into one chaotic, clusterfuck ballot, where only the top four move on to a general election. Great, now we get to play rank-your-favorite-sad-politician instead of choosing someone who actually represents us. The system’s already pissed off people across the political spectrum, from progressives to conservatives, and for good reason—it guts party representation and leaves smaller parties out to dry. In heavily partisan districts, all four final candidates could come from the same party, meaning voters don’t even get a real choice in November.
And let’s not ignore the nightmare that is ranked-choice voting. It’s complex as hell, and voters will either screw up their ballots or get stuck ranking candidates they don’t even care about. Ballot “curing,” you say? Good luck relying on Colorado’s courts and election officials to clean up that mess. If you think election night is long now, just wait until they have to recount everything five times to figure out who won after redistributing second and third-choice votes. Democracy! But make it an overpriced logic puzzle.
Oh, and Polis and Hickenlooper love this garbage. Why? Because it lets them look bipartisan while sneaking through policies that keep challengers out. Prop 131 isn’t about solving the problem of divisive politics—it’s about making elections easier for the elite to control and harder for regular people to navigate. As always, the ones who lose are the voters—especially those unaffiliated folks this initiative pretends to champion.
Prop 131 is sold as a way to encourage competition and reduce extremism, but the real result will be a ballot full of the same tired politicians, just with an extra layer of bullshit complexity. At this point, Colorado voters need to reject this nonsense not just to save our elections, but to send a message to the rich guys bankrolling this scam: Fuck off with your election experiments.
If democracy needs reform, this ain’t it. This is just pay-to-play politics with better branding, and the only thing it will achieve is making elections more chaotic, expensive, and unfair.
