Colorado’s primary election wraps up Tuesday evening, with many voters concerned about the integrity of American democracy and fellow Coloradans’ disengagement with elections altogether.
KUNC News has been working with other newsrooms across the state through the Voter Voices initiative to survey more than 5,000 Colorado voters about the issues they want candidates to talk about this year. A large majority of respondents, more than 40% of them, listed democracy and good government as their top concern this election cycle.
KUNC partnered with reporters from Front Range Community College’s student newspaper, The Front Page, to interview voters about these concerns and find out why other Coloradans aren’t planning to vote.
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Concerns about democracy and voting
Dave Bauer is a self-described political moderate who lives in the Denver metro area. Ahead of Tuesday’s primary election, he is particularly concerned about candidates and politicians undermining the election process. He pointed to attempts to change the results of the 2020 Presidential Election in favor of Donald Trump, who lost.
“The attempt to send alternate slates of electors for the Electoral College was basically an attempt to overrule the choice of the voters,” Bauer said. “Basically, it means your elections don't matter if something like that is allowed to happen.”
Bauer said he’s worried politicians will employ similar tactics in the future, further eroding trust in elections. For him, a big contributor to the problem is the increasing political polarization in America and an election system that encourages candidates to lean into extreme positions.
Golden resident Don Cameron, agrees. Cameron has served on various city commissions and said political polarization on the state and local level is often driven by the example set by national politics. Such polarization, he said, prevents elected officials from making much-needed compromises.
“People think that, if their representatives don't do what they ask in the moment, that they're not getting democracy, and that's not true. They are getting democracy. They're getting representative democracy,” Cameron said. “There's no way to make everybody happy, because as an elected representative, I represent people on two sides of an issue, and therefore I cannot make everybody happy.”
Cameron also said polarization is threatening the democratic process by building distrust in both the government as a whole and specifically in the election system.
“Congress is dysfunctional and has no trust. They don't try to make legislation better. They just try to do gotchas all the time,” Cameron said. “It's hard to convince somebody that the right thing to do is to vote and get people in that care about good governance, [when] we don't have [good governance].”
Cameron also said it’s hard to build trust with young voters when the only candidates for president are “two old guys.”
Disengaged and disillusioned voters
Shelby Castleberry is one voter in her early 30s who is considering withholding her vote this year.
“I'm still thinking about it. I really, honestly wish that we weren't going to have a repeat of 2020,” Castleberry said. “I don't think it's right that we have to choose one side or the other when both sides should be working together to help us as a people.”
She is frustrated by the choices on the ballot, especially for president, and would be more willing to vote if there were more young people on the ballot. The polarized environment and dysfunctional federal government also makes it hard for her to get involved in the process.“Both parties are immature. They are fighting or, you know, calling each other names or laughing at each other instead of being professional leaders of our country. I feel like other people look at us like we're a joke because of how our politics play. I don't feel like it's right. I feel like we need to, like it used to be a lot more professional than this.”
Another voter, 20 year-old Santiago Zimbron-Leon, also put a lot of emphasis on the presidential race and said he will not be voting mainly because of the two candidates to choose from.
“I just don't feel like anybody represents my view. That's it,” he said. “When Biden was elected, it seemed like everybody was voting for him off of the premise of, you can't be as bad as Trump. And then, you know, a lot of people ended up being really disappointed with the job that Biden is doing. A lot of the issues that I felt strongly about weren't really addressed, or addressed incorrectly.”
Zimbron-Leon said he is also discouraged from participating in the voting process because wealthy special interests have so much power over politicians.
“The vote is more of a stepping stone on the way there, but the money is what really gets people to go across,” Zimbron-Leon said. “If a politician is allowed to accept money from people that have influence and power, then that person is not really representing the people.”
Regardless of their criticisms of politicians and the election process, both Zimbron-Leon and Castleberry feel strongly that they want to see elected officials addressing specific issues, particularly immigration and the cost of living. Both said they would be more motivated to vote in local elections because they feel local candidates are more focused on issues like these that impact everyday Coloradans.
Election officials’ perspectives
Clerk and Recorder Josh Zygielbaum runs Adams County’s election. He said current disillusionment around voting is the result of political messaging.
“Personally, I think it's sad,” Zygielbaum said. “That sense that your vote isn't going to count actually does come as a result of the mis- and disinformation that has taken place over the last 10 years. But your vote does count, and every single vote counts, especially locally. Sometimes the school district is small enough that there's only 50 people voting in it.”
Colorado’s top election official, Secretary of State Jena Griswold, also said distrust in the elections is because politicians have repeatedly undermined the election process
“It's really important that elected officials do not shout lies,” Griswold said. “That's the bottom line: elected officials should not lie to their constituents, because it has real effects, especially when it comes to lying about elections.”
But Griswold also said it’s too early to tell if a significant number of voters will sit out this year, especially when it comes to younger people.
“Don't underestimate younger voters,” Griswold said. “For younger people, there is so much on the line–democracy, the right of women to be full citizens in this country, the right to feel safe when you go to school or go to the grocery store, the ability to purchase a home and really live the American dream–and in this country, how we make these tremendous changes, one of the ways is at the ballot box, and we have seen younger people really tuned into policy.”
That said, ballot returns for the primary election are tracking lower than in both 2020 and 2022. As of Monday, about 16% of eligible voters had submitted ballots. That’s about half of the voters that had submitted their ballots at the same point in the 2020 primary election. Even in the 2022 primary, more than 18% of voters had returned their ballots one day before the primary, despite the fact that midterm elections generally see lower turnout.
This year, voters must submit their ballots using an official dropbox or polling center by the time the polls close at 7:00 p.m. Tuesday. Polling centers, dropbox locations and other voting resources can be found through KUNC’s voter guide.
Julian Hanes and Lisa Julich Wyman with The Front Page contributed reporting to this article.
Voter Voices is a survey distributed by more than 30 newsrooms across the state asking Coloradans what they want politicians to focus on in the upcoming election that will inform our coverage throughout the 2024 election cycle.
Correction: An earlier version of this story stated Golden resident Don Cameron is a candidate in this year's mayoral race. He is not.
