Voter guides are a hallmark of election season. Here’s how CPR makes theirs
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DENVER — Everything from ballot measures — of which Colorado has 14 on the ballot this year — to congressional seats to Regional Transportation District (RTD) offices will be left up to the Colorado electorate come November 5th.
Many Colorado voters have already received their ballots in the mail, as Colorado is one of 38 states that offers early voting and mail-in ballots to all voters.
All mail-in ballots are due to county clerks and recorders by 7:00 pm sharp on November 5th, according to the Secretary of State.
Those voting in-person must be in line at a designated polling location by 7:00 pm on November 5th. All those in line by that time will be allowed to vote.
Voters are allowed to register through Election Day and can be done online or in-person at a physical office including a Colorado DMV, recruitment offices of the armed forces and voter service and polling centers.
Information about where to drop off ballots or to vote in-person is available here on the Secretary of State’s website.
This year’s ballot includes congressional races, board of education and regents races, RTD district races and a barrel full of ballot measures, so if it sounds like there are many choices to make, that’s because there are.
“It’s a lot, definitely,” said Megan Verlee, the public affairs editor at Colorado Public Radio (CPR).
“When it’s my turn to vote, I’m going to brew a cup of tea and, I don’t know, put my kids in front of iPads or something, because it’s going to be a time commitment to figure out all these things on the ballot,” Verlee said.
Since around July of this year, Verlee has been helping lead a team of CPR reporters to construct their biennial “Colorado Voter’s Guide,” a comprehensive reference tool designed to help overwhelmed voters efficiently learn more about the various initiatives and candidates listed on their ballots.
“The goal of our Voter’s Guide is to give you one place you can go and answer a lot of your questions,” said Verlee.
“It’s to really help provide good information on a wide array of questions and races to help people fill out their ballot more easily.”
For the past few months, Verlee managed a daunting Google spreadsheet that meticulously categorized and tracked each part of the ballot that needed coverage.
Some of the major races included are the four seats up for grabs in the State Board of Education (written by contributing journalists from Chalkbeat Colorado) and the hotly contested congressional races.
“We’re going to get at least two new members of Congress in the 5th District, where the incumbent [Doug Lamborn, R] is retiring, and in the 3rd District, where the incumbent [Lauren Boebert, R] moved to run in the 4th District,” said Verlee.
Verlee underlined CPR’s coverage of regional races as well, like the RTD 2024 board member elections, which sometimes go under-covered due to their lower position on the ballot.
This year, Colorado Public Radio, along with other newsrooms around Colorado, partnered with the nonprofit Colorado News Collaborative (COLAB) to gather insights into the topics and issues that matter most to Colorado voters this year.
Rocky Mountain PBS is also a member of this newsroom consortium and did not publish a voter guide this year.
Named “Voter Voices 2024,” newsrooms from the Kiowa County Independent in Eads to the Durango Herald in Durango to KUNC in Fort Collins helped collect more than 7,000 voter survey responses.
“With our partners at all these newsrooms, we’ve been serving the people of Colorado since this spring with one very simple question, ‘What do you want candidates to talk about as they compete for your votes?’” said Verlee.
Over the coming weeks, Rocky Mountain PBS will publish voter stories touching on the concerns and subjects identified in these results.
“Immigration” and “Cost of Living” were among some of the highest-ranked categories, along with “Housing,” “Climate and Natural Resources,” and “Democracy and Good Government.”
CPR’s Voter’s Guide makes reference to the litany of other guides being published concurrently, including those from the ACLU or the League of Women Voters, to explain what they may or may not be supporting.
For more information on discerning fact from fiction within all of this year’s election guides, voters can visit MediaWise, Poynter’s misinformation-fighting media literacy initiative.
Rocky Mountain PBS partnered with MediaWise for Reality Check, a media literacy campaign that features a variety of stories looking at Colorado’s own political sphere.
In order to remain balanced in CPR’s writing, Verlee established what might seem to be a bit of non-intuitive advice with her team:
“I tell them, ‘Make the decision as hard as possible for the voter,’ which is to say, find the best arguments on both sides,” said Verlee.
Verlee also recognized that she and her CPR staff were “human beings,” that might possibly miss an angle or an argument in a report. She welcomes edits and feedback, and underlined that CPR will make corrections if needed.
Bubbling above the tortuous logistics and production processes required to create the Voter’s Guide was Verlee’s excitement about democracy and the democratic process. She said that as much as she’s excited to see the Voter’s Guide published, she is equally happy to see how voters might use it to better inform their decision-making come November.
“I think that’s fundamentally a part of what we do in journalism is give people the information they need to make choices about the world around them, and this is one of those very direct times that we get to do that,” said Verlee.
Underlying CPR’s reporting, the Voter’s Guide, and the democratic process as a whole, she stressed, is the importance of being a well-informed voter, one prepared to take on the powerful task of making important community decisions.
“We’re going to be lawmakers,” she said. “We’re going to be Constitution-amenders. And we’re going to be asked to have opinions on a really wide range of things that people may not have thought about until they get their ballot, which I think is really cool.”
“But it means that citizens have an obligation back to make thoughtful choices, and a voter’s guide makes that possible.”
“Colorado Voices: Beyond the Ballot,” Rocky Mountain PBS’ special on Colorado’s democracy, will premiere Thursday, October 24th at 7:30 p.m.