This commentary is by Nicole Speer, a member of the Boulder City Council writing in her individual capacity, and Celeste Landry, who has advocated for proportional representation at the city, county, state and federal levels.
Boulder County voters may soon be asked to expand the Board of County Commissioners from three to five members and choose between two possible structures: three district seats plus two at-large seats (3+2), or five district seats elected only by district voters. Supporters say this expansion will increase representation. We appreciate that intention. But we worry that these proposals, while well-meaning, won’t deliver the broader representation people hope for.
Under both proposals, every seat would still be elected the same way we elect them now: one seat at a time, one winner at a time.
At-large seats consistently advantage the largest and wealthiest population centers. Under the proposed 3+2 model, it would be entirely possible for residents of the City of Boulder to hold three out of five seats despite having about one-third of the county’s population. That’s not more representative; it’s less.
The five-district model avoids that problem, but it also means most county voters only get to vote for one commissioner. And simply adding more districts doesn’t change who wins or whose voices carry weight. Established politicians can move to and run from another district (e.g., Lauren Boebert), districts can be drawn to split and dilute voting blocs, and some groups of voters are spread across the county in a way no district can capture, so they never get a chance to elect someone who reflects their priorities (e.g., rural residents). The geographic boundaries and number of seats determine who can run, not who can win.
We’ve seen this pattern play out in Boulder County for years. When voters can choose only one candidate per seat in a county that leans heavily toward one party, the primary becomes the deciding election. Only a fraction of voters participate in primaries, and those who do tend to be the ones most connected to political networks. As a result, the outcome reflects turnout patterns and insider networks more than the full community. Winner-take-all elections convert existing inequalities into predictable results.
Changing the number of seats doesn’t fix that. Changing the electoral system does.
Going to five commissioners is a structural change in terms of county administration and the county budget, but it is not a change in terms of better representation. For better representation, we must incorporate changes that are proven to improve representation, such as moving from winner-take-all elections to proportional elections.
In practice, a proportional election would mean that a group of political candidates that earns about a third of the votes would earn about a third of the seats. That way, no single group can sweep every seat unless almost all the voters vote the same way. The five‑district and 3+2 models don’t do this because each seat is still elected one at a time, so a single political majority can still win every seat.
That’s because simply expanding the number of commissioner districts doesn’t address turnout, barriers to candidacy or the structural forces that shape who gets elected. County commissioners serve as the county’s administrative leadership and carry out state-mandated duties. Adding more elected officials to that structure doesn’t necessarily improve representation.
There are several reforms that could improve representation on the Board of County Commissioners, from public campaign financing to universal voting, but most require time and statewide coordination. Proportional voting is the one reform that can realistically be paired now with this ballot measure, given the election timeline.
A community-led coalition, including organizations like the League of Women Voters of Boulder County, could quickly bring forward a proportional representation recommendation for a companion measure for the commissioners to consider for this year’s ballot. Since the proponents of this measure seem committed to improving representation, we’d like to see diverse community members, including those historically excluded from local political networks and those with expertise in increasing representation, brought into the conversation.
Why are we proposing a companion measure on proportional representation? Right now, Colorado county clerks can’t run a proportional voting county election. A companion measure could ask voters to adopt a proportional voting system as soon as county clerks are ready and have support from the state legislature and executive branch, whether voters choose to stay with three commissioners or move to five.
Whether the commission expansion measure passes or fails, voters probably won’t want to revisit the issue soon afterward to adopt a new system, even a better proportional system. A companion measure now avoids a follow-up measure later. It’s a win-win-win. If both measures pass, those who want more commissioners and those who want to increase representation can both win. And even if one or both fail, voters still benefit by having participated in a more accurate conversation about representation.
Most voters are only familiar with our traditional choose-one voting, and the petitioners’ message is compelling. But neither the five-district model nor the 3+2 model will increase the likelihood that more people of color, low- and middle-income residents, rural communities or renters will win seats.
Continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result isn’t realistic. If we want local governments that reflect the diversity and expertise of the people who live in Boulder County, we must choose reforms that do more than increase the number of people who serve.
Good piece by Landry and Speer in election process. I’d like to learn more about how voting works.
With the concentration of voters being highest in Boulder, how does this protect the rest of the county from being dominated by Boulder? I really don’t get it.
Currently, Boulder dominates. Expanding to 5 Commissioners will still have Boulder dominate, since we didn’t change the voting system and only increased how many people are elected by the majority. Because each Commissioner has their own election, it’s a winner-take-all election every time, so Boulder dominates for every Commissioner. By making elections multi-member, Boulder may still get the first candidate (or may not), but other constituencies will get the 2nd and/or 3rd since Boulder’s votes already elected the 1st. Until we elect multiple candidates at once using a proportional system (multi-member RCV = STV), the majority will always rule.
Many thanks to Ms. Speer and Ms. Landry for this important contribution about improving our democracy. I am reluctant to vote for expanding to 5 commissioners unless it leads to improved representation for the diverse constituencies that make up our country. Proportional representation is a way to achieve that.
Hi Nicole and Celeste,
I’ve long been a fan of proportional elections and representation. Much of the EU uses this system, and it gives diverse voices official seat at the table, which the American system does not.
Two questions:
1. With only 3 or 5 commissioners, it’ll still be a stretch to get much political diversity with a proportional system in Boulder County. If there were 9, like on Boulder City Council, there’d be a better chance of ‘minority’ parties winning a seat or two. If there’s only 3 commissioners, you’d need at least 33% of the vote to get a seat, whereas with 5 commissioners, you’d need 20% of the vote to get a seat. Five commissioners might more likely get a Republican or Libertarian or Green on the Commission, but it might still be a stretch in the one-party domination of Boulder County. Thoughts on that?
2. How would you propose to handing “unaffiliated” voters and “unafffilaited” candidates? Or would you require each voter and candidate to be in an official Party in order to vote and run?
All best, and thank you for writing this,
Gary Wockner
If I may:
1a. You’re confusing single-member districts with multi-member districts, and you’re defaulting to a counting method not used. More Commissioners is always slightly better, but STV (=multi-member “proportional” RCV) gets rid of the majoritarian problem you’re stating, even with 3 Commissioners. With STV and 3 Commissioners, Boulder would get the 1st Commissioner by normal majority, but would not get the other 2 because their votes already went to the 1st elected. The votes for the other Commissioners will come from those that didn’t get their candidate elected yet, aka not Boulder. This necessitates minority representation. The amount of minority representation increases significantly with more Commissioners, but even 3 Commisioners will reflect the popular sentiment much more with STV (proportional RCV) instead of the current winner-take-all for each candidate individually.
1b. There are many ways to calculate the STV threshold for election. Typically it’s [1/(candidates+1)] +1. If there are 3 Commssioners, the threshold would be [1/4]%+1=26%. For 5 Commissioners, the threshold is 16.7%+1=17.7%. This already lowers the barrier to entry, but by removing the elected candidates’ votes that already passed the threshold out of the tally, the other 2 candidates must be represented by those that didn’t get a candidate yet, aka not Boulder.
Gary’s questions were practical and specific: whether proportional methods meaningfully change outcomes with only three or five seats, and how such a system would work in a county dominated by unaffiliated voters and candidates. The response he received treated those questions as a technical misunderstanding and moved quickly to assurances that representation would “necessarily” follow once Boulder’s votes were exhausted. That answer assumes a coherence among “not Boulder” voters that has little grounding in local political reality, where party affiliation explains very little and outcomes turn instead on campaigns, endorsements, and narrow distinctions among broadly aligned candidates. Experience also suggests that even highly localized or “fairer” representation offers no reliable guarantee of how officials act once elected. Institutional incentives favor consensus, risk avoidance, and alignment with the prevailing power structure, often producing a growing disconnect from constituent will and, over time, a defensiveness—even antagonism—toward sustained public challenge. Framed as fairness in representation, this debate ultimately points to a county-versus-city tension. If the intent is to dilute city-centered influence in county governance, that is a defensible position. If the intent is fairness, that should be stated plainly as well. What is harder to defend is circling those goals through technical claims about voting methods while sidestepping the deeper problem residents encounter again and again: the exercise, and at times abuse, of established power once decisions move from elections to governance. If this is about power rather than math, it should be argued as such.
Councilmember Speer and Ms. Landry make a thoughtful case for proportional representation in the abstract. But what’s striking is how detached their argument is from the most immediate and consequential representation failure currently playing out in South Boulder.
Save South Boulder was formed by residents of the floodplain after repeated exclusion from meaningful decision-making on a project that will permanently reshape their neighborhood. The organization’s lawsuit focused on the city’s use of emergency authority, its financing structure, and the pace and process by which the flood-mitigation project was authorized and advanced, despite sustained objections from those most directly affected. That dispute emerged from lived experience and concrete impacts on the ground.
Against that backdrop, calls for “better representation” ring hollow when they are advanced by elected officials who opposed affected residents in practice while now speaking about representation in structural terms. Representation involves more than electoral mechanics; it requires listening to, respecting, and fairly engaging communities already under an institution’s authority.
The irony is difficult to ignore. Councilmember Speer lives in the immediate South Boulder area, within steps of the CU South property and the neighborhoods most affected by annexation and flood-mitigation decisions, yet consistently supported annexation and subsequent city actions over the expressed concerns of many nearby residents. Geographic proximity did not translate into advocacy. Living in a neighborhood alone does not amount to representation when residents’ concerns are dismissed or treated as obstructionist and met with extraordinary legal retaliation.
This disconnect is reinforced by the broader context. CU’s purchase of the CU South property foreclosed a long-assumed path to county open space protection. Annexation shifted land-use authority from the county—the institution historically responsible for open space stewardship—to the City of Boulder. Flood-mitigation decisions then proceeded through city financing, emergency powers, and timelines, even as county land and open space remained directly affected. By the time county representation entered the conversation, county authority had already been narrowed.
The city’s pursuit of sanctions against individual plaintiffs after prevailing in court illustrates the problem vividly. That action chilled civic participation more effectively than any structural feature of county elections. When residents face personal financial risk for raising good-faith legal concerns, no voting system—proportional or otherwise—can rebalance power.
I agree that representation matters. Improving it begins with fairness, accountability, and respect for process where decisions are actually made. Structural reforms may deserve discussion, but they cannot substitute for elected officials taking seriously the voices of communities already asking—clearly and repeatedly—to be heard.
Just for everyone’s info, current Boulder County voter registration numbers show about 51.2% unaffiliated (134,528 out of 262,692). It’s important to remember that unaffiliated voters and candidates are by no means monolithic. They might be far-left, far-right, centrist, unable to register because of their job (like some journalists), or just not interested in belonging to a party. There is no “unaffiliated party” and there is no party platform.
2. I believe the current requirement is 1,200 signatures to get on the ballot. We can keep that requirement. Since ranking doesn’t require party affiliation, there’s no need for affiliation to run. You just have to get the signature threshold to get on the ballot.
I’d suggest starting here: https://protectdemocracy.org/work/proportional-representation-explained/#varieties-of-PR
IMO, given the dominance of a single party here….
Any system that presumes members of the parties or “groups” will represent the same ideas is a fallacy, since leaving the dominant party will marginalize alternate party candidates, especially to voters that aren’t WELL informed of the differences.
IMO, “Closed List” mostly leaves power at the primaries (or the party) and is even worse than the current solution. Given what little I know of it, “Mixed-Member System” seems only a little better.
Open List still falls prey to the idea that members of a party will represent voters equivalently, although perhaps not as badly.
STV (Single Transferable Vote) aka RCV (Ranked Choice Voting) seems, IMO, the only reasonable choice – at least until such time we get many more parties, and ones that actually are true to their stated goals/platforms.