In the closing hours of the 2024 legislative session, Rep. Emily Sirota introduced an amendment to a routine elections bill that should make anyone who supports voting rights cringe.

Under the guise of looking out for Coloradans’ “confidence in our elections” and “communities of color,” Sirota slipped into the bill a provision that attempts to preempt the will of voters — before they even have a chance to vote — should a November elections reform ballot initiative pass. This significant change occurred in less than a minute on the floor after the Senate approved the clean-up bill and after the bill had been heard in committee with a public comment process.

The amendment is a brazen effort to undermine election results should either of two initiatives (Nos. 188 and 310) that propose using all-candidate primary elections and ranked-choice voting (RCV) in Colorado general elections pass this November. How? By attempting to make it next-to-impossible to implement them for state and federal elections beginning in 2026, as proposed.

As longtime observers of late-session antics, this amendment stands out for its a blatant disregard for voters and for Colorado’s popular citizen’s initiative process (a March 2024 Colorado Polling Institute survey of Colorado voters found nearly 9-in-10 like directly voting on ballot initiatives).

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We urge voters to speak up against this abuse of process because this last-minute substantive change bypassed normal procedures that allow for public comment. More importantly, this subterfuge undermines the legislative process and gives the appearance that partisan elected officials are afraid of voters having a say in elections.

In her message to her House colleagues just three days before the legislature adjourned, Sirota said her rushed amendment was needed to ensure voters “understand their ballots, and that communities of color, low-income voters, and those with limited English proficiency are not harmed.”

The red herring of voter confusion is not new. It was used by opponents of the law that created Colorado’s gold-standard mail-ballot election system (2013’s Colorado’s Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act) and again by opponents of the initiative that opened primary elections to unaffiliated voters (Proposition 108 in 2016). Those have proved to be two of Colorado’s most popular election reforms — and are entirely not confusing to voters.

The notion that expanding voter choice through ranked-choice voting somehow harms communities of color is, frankly, insulting. An in-depth analysis of elections at the local and state levels conducted by the nonpartisan group FairVote released this year found “communities of color continue to experience positive outcomes from ranked-choice voting elections.”

Communities across Colorado have already approved and used ranked-choice voting in elections, and our fantastic county clerks have systems in place to run and audit those contests. Using ranking systems simply gives voters more choice, and does not substantively change the way votes are processed.

But whether someone supports ranked-choice voting (as we do) or opposes it is a debate for another day. The more urgent issue is whether this gross abuse of power is rewarded by the bill becoming law. If so, where does it end? What’s to stop a future legislature from taking this step-too-far even further on some future citizens’ initiative?

This is, plain and simple, what voters hate about politics. If you agree, please reach out to your lawmaker and let them know, and visit LetColoradoVote.com to add your name to the petition of organizations and individuals standing up for Colorado’s citizens’ initiative process.

Greg Moore is a registered independent, chief executive of Klowtify and the former editor of The Denver Post. Amber McReynolds is an unaffiliated voter and former director of elections for the City and County of Denver.