How To Get Involved in Local Politics During This Election—and All Year Round

We, the people of the United States, are dissatisfied. Whether you are red, blue, or purple, chances are you don’t like something the government has done, is doing, or plans to do. The good news is that, at least in Colorado, there are plenty of ways you can effect change.

Voting may be the simplest way to participate in Colorado politics, but it’s not the only method. Below, we outline how residents can become more active in civic matters, from pulling the proverbial lever at a poll to pulling the levers of power themselves. Because while not everyone has the time, passion, and profile to become an elected official, we all deserve a say in how our lives are legislated.

Jump Ahead:

• How To Vote in Colorado
• 4 Ways To Get Involved in Local Politics
• 5 Ways to Get Informed on Local Politics
• 3 Ways to Help Get the Youth Involved in Local Politics
• 5 Tips for Running for Local Political Office

Also Inside:

• How Coloradans are Helping Incarcerated People Vote
• How Coloradans are Helping Underrepresented Folks Vote
• How Coloradans are Helping More People Enter the Public Arena

And:

• How Keeping the Conversation Going Moves Us Forward
• How To Get a Citizen-Led Initiative on the Ballot

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How To Vote in Colorado

A checklist for Centennial State electors.

Am I eligible?

• I’m a U.S. citizen.
• I’m at least 18 years old (you can preregister to vote at 16).
• I’ve been a Colorado resident for at least 22 days.
• I’m not incarcerated for a felony conviction (you can vote on parole or probation).

How do I register?

• Obtain a valid Social Security number, Colorado driver’s license, or Colorado ID card.
• Register online with the Colorado Secretary of State, through a mail-in form, or in person at a Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles office or other approved building.
• Submit online or mail in your registration at least eight days before an election to receive a mail-in ballot, or register in person on Election Day until 7 p.m.

How can I vote?

• In person (find your voting center online)
• Mail-in ballot (every registered voter in Colorado receives one; it can be mailed in, placed in a ballot box, or returned to a voting center)

What identification do I need to vote?

• In person: You’ll need a valid ID (a Colorado driver’s license or Colorado ID card are the most common forms, but find the full list of acceptable IDs on the secretary of state’s website).
• Mail-in ballot: Recent registrants and first-time mail-in voters should include a photocopy of their IDs.

What’s the deadline to vote?

• In person: You must be standing in line at a voting center by 7 p.m. on Election Day.
• Mail-in ballots: Your ballot must be received by a local county clerk and recorder by 7 p.m. on Election Day.

Will my vote make a difference?

• 546 votes determined U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert’s margin of victory, out of 327,132 cast, in 2022.
• 218 votes determined Denver City Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca’s margin of victory, out of 16,724 cast, in 2023.
• 405 votes determined state Representative Bob Marshall’s margin of victory, out of 45,347 cast, in 2022.

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How Coloradans are Helping Incarcerated People Vote

In 2018, the Colorado secretary of state’s office mandated that all county jails create and implement plans that would allow eligible voters in their custodies to cast ballots. It was an important rulemaking because many people held in county-level detention centers haven’t been convicted of anything; they simply can’t afford bail before their days in court.

Five years later, Jasmine Ross, the civic engagement manager for the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition (CCJRC), pulled up election data from 2020 and 2022 and saw that only seven percent and 4.7 percent, respectively, of eligible incarcerated voters statewide had submitted ballots. Those stats didn’t track with what Ross knew about inmate enfranchisement: In 2020, the CCJRC had helped bring in-person voting to Denver County jails, the first such initiative in Colorado. For 2023’s school board election, which typically yields a lower turnout than presidential or midterm elections, 43 percent of electors in Denver’s Confined Voter Program submitted a ballot.

When she began working with the Denver-based nonprofit as a 20-year-old volunteer canvasser in 2017, Ross didn’t even realize individuals with criminal backgrounds could vote. (In Colorado, those who have completed their felony convictions or are on parole or probation are free to participate. People convicted of misdemeanors can vote no matter what.) The more Ross learned, the more she began to believe that the criminal justice system offered little justice to those who need it the most—in particular, the people of color who make up a disproportionate share of confined voters in Colorado.

In response to her number-crunching, Ross decided Colorado needed a more systemized and enforceable approach to inmate voting. So, Ross recruited state Senator Julie Gonzalez, a Denver Democrat, as a sponsor, and in May, Governor Jared Polis signed the Voting for Confined Eligible Electors Act. Largely an expansion of Denver’s Confined Voter Program, the law requires that, beginning with this month’s election, Colorado county clerks and recorders must oversee in-person registration and voting systems in jails.

While other state legislatures continue to squeeze voting rights, the Centennial State has only become more expansive in its accommodations. In fact, Colorado ranked as the fifth-easiest state in which to vote, according to the 2022 Cost of Voting Index—and, as Ross’ law shows, participating has become even more painless since then. “What I really respect,” says Beth Hendrix, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Colorado, “is that the Legislature, the secretary of state’s office, and a whole mess of nonprofit organizations are forever working to raise [Colorado’s voting rights] from gold to platinum.”

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4 Ways To Get Involved in Local Politics

1. Voting: We do, after all, live in a democracy.
2. Becoming an election judge, aka an election worker: Election judges are temporary, paid staffers (in Jefferson County, you’ll receive $14.50 to $18 per hour) who help county clerk and recorder offices run elections by doing everything from picking up ballots from drop-off boxes to running voting centers. The best place to start is by contacting your local Republican or Democratic party; unaffiliated voters can apply directly to their clerks.
3. Supporting your candidate: In Colorado, individuals can donate up to $4,675 to a political party, up to $725 to most statewide candidates, and up to $225 to state Legislature candidates in each election cycle.
4. Participating in a poll: Yes, those text messages are annoying, but they help politicians and officials understand public opinions about policy decisions, says Courtney Sievers, director of quantitative research at Broomfield-based Magellan Strategies.

And 4 Ways NOT To Get Involved in Local Politics

1. Voting on behalf of your missing wife: In 2020, Barry Morphew of Chaffee County submitted a mail-in ballot for his spouse, Suzanne, who had disappeared earlier that year. Morphew was later charged with her murder. Although that charge was dropped, the state prosecuted Morphew, who said he “just wanted Trump to win,” for forgery and a mail-in-ballot offense.
2. Letting your friends fiddle with the ballots: After the 2020 general election, former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters gave a conservative conspiracy theorist access to a voting machine, from which he took passwords and other sensitive data that later appeared online. A jury convicted Peters of seven criminal charges in August.
3. Stealing or damaging your neighbor’s political yard signs: That’s a misdemeanor under Colorado law, and you may have to pay to replace it.
4. Taking an informal poll at Thanksgiving dinner: The election is over. Find something else to fight about.

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5 Ways to Get Informed on Local Politics

You probably know who’s running for president, but how about the state Legislature? The state Board of Education? The state Supreme Court? (Wait, aren’t those judges appointed?) The League of Women Voters of Colorado has been doing its best to answer electors’ questions since 1936, when it printed its first election guide. Since then, the nonprofit, which has 19 local chapters and about 2,400 members (including, yes, men) in Colorado, has expanded its materials to help provide pathways to advanced political education.

1. Crack a Textbook: The league’s printed guide, distributed in September, only covers statewide ballot measures. For a more comprehensive cheat sheet, visit the nonprofit’s vote411.org and input your address for a sample ballot based on your specific location. Then simply hover your cursor over an issue for an explanation of what a “yes” or “no” vote means; doing the same on candidates reveals their answers to a league-commissioned survey.
2. Meet the Candidates: Local chapters hosted more than 100 candidate forums across the state in 2024, ranging from panels to “candidating” events, in which political hopefuls move between different groups, à la speed dating. The vibe is more Fresh Air than Jerry Springer and leads to a shockingly (at least in today’s environment) civilized discussion of ideas.
3. Take Notes: This past January, the Colorado Media Project gave the league $25,000 to underwrite its Eyewitness Corps—cadres of league members from local chapters who attend public meetings to ensure everyone’s keeping their hands clear of the cookie jar. The grant will fund the corps’ partnerships with local newspapers, who, due to smaller staffs, can’t provide the same level of vigilance as they once did.
4. Pick a Major: Should you feel particularly passionate about a certain issue, you can always join one of the league’s 10 task forces, which center on topics such as reproductive freedom, education, and housing. The commitment is minimal: Simply log onto a Zoom call to participate in discussions and listen to guest speakers who are experts in the field.
5. Go on a Field Trip: Interested in a live-action Schoolhouse Rock? In March, the Women’s Foundation of Colorado hosts Advocacy Day at the Capitol, during which the nonprofit holds a meet-and-greet with lawmakers. Afterwards, you can tour the House and Senate. (Sign up at wfco.org.) “It really breaks it down for you and makes it seem like, ‘Oh, this isn’t as scary as I thought. This is what it’s like at the Capitol,’ ” says Lisa Christie, a spokesperson for the foundation. “It kind of takes away that mystique.”

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How Coloradans are Helping Underrepresented Folks Vote

When Eyni Jama arrived in Colorado from Somalia in 2013 as a seventh grader, she kept mostly to herself; the language and cultural barriers created a sense of isolation. To ensure others never felt the same, in high school she co-founded the Colorado Refugee Speakers Bureau, which arranges for refugees and immigrants to share their stories with local churches, schools, and other community groups. ​

Jane Kirema first came to Colorado from Kenya in 2000. When police officers murdered George Floyd in Minneapolis 20 years later, she participated in Denver’s Black Lives Matter protests—though she was terrified throughout the demonstrations. Kirema, now 50, simply didn’t know if marching against a government agency would get her arrested or, perhaps, expelled from the country.

​Jama and Kirema’s experiences eventually led them both to Evan Weissman and Warm Cookies of the Revolution. A former playwright and actor at Denver’s Buntport Theater Company, Weissman had become disenchanted by the demographics at public meetings, such as City Council meetings. “It’s older, whiter, wealthier folks who have been trained that their voices matter,” Weissman says. He founded Warm Cookies in 2012 as a way to encourage a more diverse set of people to show up for civic matters—both literally and metaphorically—through a litany of educational but fun-focused events (see: “Coup Curriculum”). In 2022, the group launched Suburb Futures, an initiative that looks to expand its mission of engagement beyond Denver, starting with the city’s largest satellite: Aurora. Jama and a group of women began interviewing Aurora residents of all backgrounds about the issues they care about. They also attended City Council meetings—and encountered the same type of people Weissman saw more than a decade earlier. “It’s not a lot of people of color,” Jama says, “because everyone is doing two to three jobs just to survive…. Even if they have the chance, if they have the time, they’re also—they’re just scared.”

​Kirema joined Warm Cookies this year and is leading Suburb Futures’ second phase. Between July and December, Warm Cookies is organizing get-togethers by paying residents to host what the nonprofit is calling “house parties,” though they could be held at a park, for example, or a mosque. Kirema and her team will cover the cost of child care, translation services, and, of course, food, allowing the small groups to discuss topics like work-life balance, entrepreneurship, or even end-of-life decisions like estate planning. Those subjects might not directly connect with politics, but Warm Cookies views the forums as an opportunity to make people comfortable engaging with their communities. Plus, Kirema won’t miss an opening to plug more direct action. “You want to talk about death? Absolutely,” she says. “But can we also ask, before we die, ‘Have we voted?’ ”

3 Warm Cookies Shindigs To Try

1. Sunday School for Atheists: Discuss the big ideas—forgiveness, for example, and how it relates to criminal justice reform—that churches traditionally contemplate, without all that “eye for an eye” business getting in the way.
2. The People Vs.: The court of public opinion decides the fate of controversial topics—such as artificial intelligence and drones—in this mock trial, during which experts serve as attorneys and attendees are the jurors.
3. The Huddle: Instead of speculating about whether the Broncos will stage a late comeback, you’ll spend halftime talking civics with fellow sports fans. Bonus points: You just might learn who actually bankrolled Empower Field at Mile High. (It was taxpayers.)

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How Coloradans are Helping More People Enter the Public Arena

Laura Pretty was running out of space. Founded in 2012, Monarch Montessori in Montbello houses both a preschool and an elementary school, and in recent years an influx of applications from immigrant students interested in the public charter’s bilingual program had led to a shortage of square feet. Pretty, Monarch’s executive director, began looking at temporary trailers as a possible solution, but she felt their unsightly appearance didn’t mesh well with the Montessori approach to learning, which values pleasing environments. That’s when students began advocating for a yurt.

To Pretty, it sounded like a great solution—an opportunity to better connect pupils with the outdoors even when they’re inside a classroom. The problem: The city had never approved a yurt for a school before, because a school had never asked for a yurt before. To avoid any red tape that might arise while trying to navigate Denver’s zoning laws, Monarch decided to appeal to a higher power. Spotting a potential civics lesson, Monarch enlisted four students to speak at a Denver City Council meeting in May. Two would advocate for the yurt; the others would speak on behalf of walkability improvements around the school.

Not long into the students’ first speech, though, a spectator in the meeting’s Zoom audience unleashed a racist diatribe on the students. Councilmembers and teachers tried to console the pupils, who broke down in tears, but they were too upset to finish their speeches.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the end of the civics lesson. “What was really neat coming out of that was how it felt like all of Denver wanted to demonstrate that this didn’t represent our city,” Pretty says. Members of the City Council attended fifth-grade graduation. DPS’ Board of Education invited the students to come to one of its meetings. A local radio station held a fundraiser for the yurt, which Monarch installed in August. A new crosswalk and school zone signs are coming soon.

That being said, the students never got to finish the pitch they wrote themselves for the yurt. So, because in a democracy every voice deserves to be heard, we decided to publish it here.

“A yurt is a portable, round structure traditionally used in the mountains of Asia.

We need a yurt because we need space because our school is growing. We had to exclude some people from the preschool because we didn’t have large enough classrooms. The yurt would be used for music.

Some schools have trailers for extra classrooms, but they ruin the area underneath them and often look ugly. A yurt is less than half the cost of a trailer, and so it would save our school money. Yurts are environment-safe structures.

Yurts are also safe. They have been used for thousands of years. We will install heating and cooling systems, electricity, and all of the other things that a building requires to be a safe space for children.

The City Council can help by accepting the yurt. Then we can have more space. Please help us get a yurt.”

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3 Ways to Help Get the Youth Involved in Local Politics

It’s a nice idea to think that one person can make a difference, but, at least in politics, numbers matter. “It always impressed me,” says Cole Wist, a former state representative from Arapahoe County, “when people walked in the door with a coalition of people that supported an idea.” Perhaps no local political group has managed a more impressive act of coalition-building in recent years than New Era Colorado. Founded in 2006, the Denver-based nonprofit has one overarching goal: to mobilize young people, a demographic that is notoriously resistant to organized direction, to be more active in politics. 5280 recently spoke with executive director Nicole Hensel to find out how New Era has been able to harness the power of youth.

1. Rock the Voters: The most successful organizations meet their target demographics where they are, which is why New Era is a constant presence on college campuses and at community events. The group’s most direct objective is to build power through numbers, because, 34-year-old Hensel says, young voters can’t show strength through dollars, “because we don’t have them.” Organizers then enlist new electors to the cause. “Something that we commonly do is called vote tripling, where you ask them to name three of their friends or family members who they’re going to reach out to,” Hensel says. “It’s actually a highly effective tactic. It triples the effect of just one phone call.”
2. Take Aim: New Era bills itself as a nonpartisan group that just wants to activate voters between 16 and 34, but it does have an advocacy arm. To find out which way to point it, the nonprofit spoke to 1,200 young people on a statewide listening tour in 2021 and used the conversations to form a 10-point policy platform called Youth Agenda, which focused on pillars such as climate change and reproductive rights—issues that New Era now advocates for on state and federal levels. For example, the nonprofit was part of a coalition that worked to get Amendment 79, which would enshrine the right to abortion in Colorado’s constitution if it passes, on the November ballot.
3. Lead: Democrats Joe Neguse (a Colorado congressman), Leslie Herod (a state representative), Steve Fenberg (president of the state senate), and Lisa Kaufmann (formerly Governor Jared Polis’ chief of staff) co-founded New Era. Now, the nonprofit is focused on finding the next next generation of heavyweights. “We are often a launching pad for young people early on in their political careers,” Hensel says, explaining that New Era cultivates future power brokers by spotting promising members of the group’s base and shepherding them from volunteer to intern to employee, teaching fundamentals such as organizing and fundraising on every rung of the ladder.

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How Keeping the Conversation Going Moves Us Forward

During George W. Bush’s presidency, concerned parties started thinking about imposing stricter regulations on private security firms. The United States, however, would never accept greater oversight of the contract armies it used in Iraq and Afghanistan—at least, that’s what Deborah Avant, then a professor of international studies at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., told the Swiss Foreign Ministry and the International Committee of the Red Cross. “They didn’t listen to me,” says Avant, now the Sié Chéou-Kang Chair for International Security and Diplomacy at the University of Denver. “Thank goodness.” Government, industry, and other stakeholders continued meeting; eventually, the latter came to view oversight less like handcuffs and more like a colander that would help them filter out rogue companies. And so, in 2013, the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Providers—“a key component that we have now for regulating this industry,” Avant says—was born. The lesson? There’s no better way to prevent progress than to stop talking to the other side, no matter how impossible finding common ground might seem. “When you have that kind of openness,” Avant says, “there is a much greater possibility for creativity, for new ideas, for innovation.”

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5 Tips for Running for Local Political Office

We asked five elected officials in Colorado to explain the realities of running—and holding—political office.

Diana DeGette, Congresswoman, 1st Congressional District, Denver:

“When I ran for the state Legislature in 1992, I replaced a guy who had been in the House for 27 years, but a new term-limits law forced him to retire. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Four years after that, Pat Schroeder, who had been the Denver congresswoman for 24 years, suddenly and unexpectedly announced she was retiring. I just happened to be the senior ranking Democrat in the state Legislature by then, so I was positioned to run for that seat. Some of it is ability—the ability to put together a campaign, to raise the money, to be able to connect with the constituents, to have the depth of knowledge. All of that’s important, but a lot of it is just luck.”

Paul Lundeen, State Senate Minority Leader, District 9, El Paso County:

“Being in the minority doesn’t mean you can’t affect policy. We’ve been able to insert amendments into laws that make them more functional for people who have to live with those policies. The majority gets its way, but the minority gets its say.”

Chris Kolker, State Senator, District 16, Arapahoe and Jefferson Counties:

“In the beginning, raising money is very difficult. For me, it was extremely difficult, because I was an unknown entity running for a seat that no one gave me a chance to win. Trying to figure out who to ask, who to talk to, where to get the money from, and how to organize that fundraising—political parties help, for sure, but if you’re not [running for one of the districts they are targeting in that election], they’re not really helping you.”

Lisa Feret, City Councilwoman, Arvada:

“There are no boundaries. Your life is public. Your address is public. I had an ex-boyfriend that I had a restraining order against when I was in the military show up at my house after my stuff got public. You just don’t have boundaries anymore.”

Abe Laydon, Douglas County Commissioner:

“I get very turned off by people who come up to me and say, ‘Hey, I want to be a commissioner, I want to be a mayor, I want to be a city council person.’ Because to me, they’re saying, ‘Hey, I want a title.’ They are the type of people who will change their values to get elected. I had a citizen named Jessica Johnson in my district. She had never done anything in government, but she found out that we were using Roundup as a weed spray in the county and in Lone Tree. She encouraged us to look at organic compounds that were just as effective—and we did it. We just made the change because of her caring and her desire to make a difference. That’s the type of person who should run for office.”

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How To Get a Citizen-Led Initiative on the Ballot

While working at a veterinary hospital in San Miguel County in 2017, Dr. Christine Capaldo learned that a hunter had killed a bobcat near Telluride Regional Airport. After watching a video of the incident on social media, she contacted a witness to the harvesting. He told her that a hunter had strangled the animal to preserve the pelt, which Capaldo insisted was cruel. “Well,” he responded, “that’s how trappers do it around here.”

Trapping bobcats is not only legal in the Centennial State, but Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) also sets no quota for the animals. “I was determined to figure out a way to stop this from happening,” Capaldo says.

Capaldo first tried to petition CPW directly to ban the fur trapping of bobcats. The agency denied it. She, as part of a larger coalition, then attempted to outlaw bobcat, lynx, and mountain lion hunting in 2022 through legislation at the state Capitol. The bill never made it out of committee. “I did quickly learn that it is very hard to change laws from the top to the bottom,” Capaldo says. So, she decided to try to reverse the path of power.

Colorado is one of 26 states that permits citizen-led initiatives. If advocates for a new law can gather enough signatures of support, they can place the proposed proposition on the November ballot. The Centennial State is also just one of 18 states that allows residents to do the same with constitutional amendments. From 1880 to 2023, 251 citizen-led ballot initiatives reached electors, and 90 of them were adopted. Capaldo hopes to increase that number by one in 2024.

Capaldo had worked with Washington, D.C.–based Animal Wellness Action to help craft the bill in 2022, and, a year later, the nonprofit took the lead in forming an advocacy group for a bobcat initiative called Cats Aren’t Trophies (CAT). CAT hired Sam Miller, a veteran political operative, as campaign manager and Mark Surls, a Lakewood-based wildlife photographer, as volunteer coordinator. The group’s first step was getting the text of its measure, which seeks to ban bobcat, lynx, and mountain lion hunting, to the Legislative Council Staff by 2024’s deadline (March 22). It then had to submit the initiative to the secretary of state, whose Title Board helped fashion the wording that voters would read on the ballot, concentrating on, among other things, whether it’s posed in an easily decipherable yes-or-no format. This year, hundreds of petitioners submitted initiatives to the council staff. Only 37 had a petition approved for circulation and signature gathering. CAT’s was among them.

Citizens wanting to see their propositions on the 2024 ballot then had to collect 124,238 signatures from registered voters. (Changes to the constitution require signatures from an additional two percent of registered voters in each of the state’s 35 senate districts.) CAT recruited 900 volunteers from the local outposts of nonprofits like the Sierra Club—and a small number of paid signature-gatherers—and dispatched them to grocery stores, concerts, and festivals.

Progress was slow. Hunting advocates filed a challenge to the initiative with the Colorado Supreme Court, which ultimately denied the opposition’s petition. Nevertheless, the legal wrangling didn’t end until February—and winter isn’t the best time of year to stand outdoors and pitch a petition to passersby. “It’s amazing how quickly the temperature drops when you’re just standing still,” Surls says. By the end of the first month of work, only 8,000 Coloradans had inked their names. Surls also had to make sure volunteers remained vigilant about penmanship (if the secretary of state’s office can’t read the signature, it throws out that endorsement).

As the weather warmed, so did people’s dispositions to the cause. Spring and summer festivals were a boon: “Our biggest festival was Denver Pride,” Surls says. “We gathered about 8,000 signatures there. If we could have just replicated that event over and over again, it would have been easy.” Nevertheless, by the August 8 deadline, Surls had more than 188,000 signatures sitting in 30 boxes in his basement.

Surls says it was the most difficult job of his life. Miller agrees. “I would put childbirth and the ballot initiative, probably similar,” she says. But, like labor, it wasn’t a fruitless endeavor. CAT’s bobcat measure, aka Proposition 127, will be one of seven citizen-led initiatives on Colorado’s ballot this month (five are propositions and two are amendments). “It’s definitely not easy,” Miller says, “but if you care, there’s a path…. And I think that’s the hopeful part.”