The Colorado State Legislature referred a constitutional amendment to the November ballot that would move the deadlines for filing initiative and referendum petition signatures, as well as the deadline for justices to file their declarations to run for another term, by one week.
The change is intended to facilitate an extra week between the deadline for the secretary of state to certify ballot order and content and the election officials’ deadline to transmit ballots to overseas and absentee voters.
The amendment would also require the state legislature’s nonpartisan research staff to publish the text and ballot title for ballot measures at least 45 days prior to an election instead of 15 days before an election.
Specifically, the amendment would:
- change initiative petition filing deadline to three months and one week prior to the election (rather than three months);
- change referendum petition filing to 83 days after adjournment of the legislative session (rather than 90 days);
- change the deadline for the text and title of every measure to be published from at least 15 days prior to the final date of voter registration for the election to 45 days before the election; and
- change deadlines for justices and judges to file declarations of intent to run for another term from not more than 6 months or less than 3 months prior to the general election to not more than 6 months and one week or less than 3 months and one week before the general election.
To put a legislatively referred constitutional amendment before voters, a two-thirds (66.67%) vote is required in both the Colorado State Senate and the Colorado House of Representatives.
The amendment was introduced as Senate Concurrent Resolution 24-002. It was approved in the Senate on April 29, 2024, by a vote of 34-1. It was passed in the House on May 5, 2024, by a vote of 61-1.
The amendment is the fifth constitutional amendment that the state legislature has referred to the 2024 ballot. This is the most constitutional amendments referred to the ballot by the state legislature since 2018 when there were 13 total ballot measures including six legislatively referred amendments on the ballot.
From 2000 through 2022, 34 legislatively referred constitutional amendments were on the ballot, of which 19 were approved (55.88%) and 15 were defeated (44.12%). An average of about two constitutional amendments are referred to the ballot during even-numbered years. Since 2017, constitutional amendments require voter approval of 55% to be adopted.
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