Most Ballot Measures Since 1912 For Colorado

Voting could be tricky with up to 20 ballot measures potentially choking the voting process, and creating very long lines--bring a cheat sheet!:

The Secretary of State's deadline to submit signatures for a citizen initiative is Monday and conceivably, 13 of those could join the seven referenda already sent to the ballot by state lawmakers.

That would be two short of the record 22 measures decided 94 years ago in the first Colorado election including ballot measures.

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The 1912 ballot included Coloradans voting down prohibition on alcohol, establishing an 8-hour work day for women and miners and rejecting a call to set up the Colorado State Fair.

Since then, the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California has calculated there have been 189 citizen-based initiatives introduced in Colorado. Voters have approved 67, rejected 122 for a passage rate of roughly 35 percent.

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Dennis believes the length of the ballot may turn off voters to those initiatives which by virtue of getting signatures in late, show up at the bottom of the ballot.

"Voters get frustrated," she said. "When there's that much to look at and there's that many choices to make, they just start voting no."

This does not include local mill levies, city/county proposals, and judge confirmations that will make a quick vote nearly impossible.

Once a final list of the proposals is made by the Secretary of State, an examination of the more important issues will be discussed here.