This article was originally published by Colorado Public Radio
By Briana Heaney
Voting rights activist groups are banding together to sue Colorado Springs over when the city holds elections.
Colorado Springs holds its municipal elections during the spring, and elects its mayor and councilors on different years than when state and federal offices are elected. By doing this, the voter rights groups say the city is breaking the state's Voting Rights Act, which was enacted last year.
The League of Women Voters of the Pikes Peak Region is one of the plaintiffs. Shelly Roehrs with the League said the current system is set up to fail minority voters – and the city knows it.
“Shame on the city for fighting (this issue) for so long when we have problems. This could be done with the swipe of a pen, but unfortunately they've chosen to fight and it has cost the taxpayers,” Roehrs said.
The lawsuit alleges holding these elections at a different time than state and federal elections suppresses the votes of people of color. The suit presents voting data that revealed Black and Hispanic voters had roughly half the voter turnout of white registered voters in such municipal elections. The lawsuit says in the city's six most recent local elections, 4 percent of non-white registered voters voted, compared with 5.8 percent in November state and federal elections.
The city pointed to its Black mayor and a Black city council member to show diversity in its leadership and argued that spring elections are better for informed civic participation. Plus city leaders said it's their right as a city to decide how and when elections take place.
Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade said the lawsuit bucks his own personal lived experience as the city's first Black, immigrant mayor.
“Voting rights are not an abstract issue to me, they're deeply personal,” Mobolade said. “I find it extremely troubling when people claim that the very election system that elected Colorado Springs first Black mayor is somehow inherently exclusionary. My own lived experience tells a different story.”
Mobolade's chief of staff, former Secretary of State Wayne Williams, said the city isn't barring any registered voter from voting. He said the city mails out applications each municipal election and the state allows same-day voter registration.
“To the extent anyone is saying they don't have the opportunity to vote, that has been a conscious choice on their part because we make it easy to vote in city elections,” Williams said.
Roehrs said the city has to stop blaming residents for low turnout.
“How about we blame it on the system? The system was set up to fail minority voters,” Roehrs said.
Mobolade said elections during the spring keep local politics from getting lost in the shuffle of state and national politics during November elections.
“During my own campaign, I participated in nearly 20 debates and forums, hosted about a hundred meet and greets and conversations in neighborhoods throughout Colorado Springs,” Moboloade said. “That level of local engagement happens because municipal elections are not competing with presidential campaigns, congressional races, national political organizations, and millions of dollars in outside spending.”
Mobolade said the city has a right to manage its own elections – one protected by Home Rule.
“Local communities are different, and local communities deserve the freedom to make local decisions,” Mobolade said.
He said he asked Gov. Jared Polis not to sign the Colorado Voting Rights Act into law due to concerns over home rule.
“I knew we would be here. This is, frankly, distracting from the work of our residents,” Mobolade said.
Roehrs said home rule shouldn't prevent the city from working to better include disenfranchised voters, and emphasized that many of the groups that brought the lawsuit are local groups.
“Home rule is not God’s law,” she said. “We need to say, ‘you know what? Maybe this is wrong. Maybe we can do better.’ And that's what we want to do."
Williams said part of the reason that voter turnout is lower during the municipal elections is that city elections are nonpartisan.
“In elections where you do not have party affiliation on the ballot, turnout tends to be lower. There are voters who use that as their proxy, and so it requires a little more work to know who is actually running and what they believe in,” Williams said.
At a press conference, city officials wondered why Colorado Springs was singled out, when other cities in the state, including Denver, holds elections in the spring.
Kevin Bommer, head of the Colorado Municipal League, said the lawsuit could have a widespread impact on the state. A member of the league testified against the new law that the suit is based off of at the state house last year.
“Colorado law is crystal clear that municipal elections are purely matters of local and municipal concern. And that Senate Bill 25 1 violates Article 20 of the Colorado Constitution, which is the home rule amendment to the Constitution,” Bommer said.
Colorado Springs officials said this is the second time they've faced a lawsuit when it holds elections. The first was in federal court over the federal Voting Rights Act and was dismissed. The League of Women Voters of the Pikes Peak Region was also part of that suit.