On April 23, the Straayer Center for Public Service Leadership at Colorado State University and representatives from the City of Fort Collins hosted an event to break down ranked choice voting for students. This event is part of the Straayer Center’s Catalyzing Student Leaders series, designed to empower the next generation of leaders through workshops, panel discussions and activities on critical topics.
In 2022, Fort Collins voters approved an amendment to Article VIII of the City Charter, introducing ranked choice voting for future mayoral and City Council elections. This change took effect after Jan. 1, 2025.
On Nov. 4, 2025, Fort Collins voters will use ranked choice voting for the first time to elect the mayor and city councilmembers for Districts 1, 3 and 5, ranking candidates by preference in races with three or more candidates.
Several members of the city’s election team were in attendance, including Delynn Coldiron, city clerk; Cecilia Good, senior deputy city clerk; and Kim Holbrook, records and information governance manager. Coldiron led the presentation explaining ranked choice voting to students and the relevance of understanding it ahead of this year’s local election.
“Right now, we have four candidates in the race for mayor,” Coldiron said. “As long as everyone’s nomination petitions come in, we will be using ranked voting at least for the mayor’s race. (This) is actually really good because it means everyone in the community that’s a registered voter will be able to use ranked voting.”
Traditional forms of vote tabulation afford one choice of candidate to voters, with the candidate receiving at least 50.1% of the vote share winning immediately. In contrast, ranked choice voting allows voters to order their preferences of candidates. If a candidate receives 50.1% of first-choice votes, they win immediately, but if no candidate receives a majority of first-place votes, the election will proceed according to voter preference.
Coldiron then demonstrated how the second-choice preferences of each voter would be retabulated, eventually electing the candidate with the most first- and second-place votes.
Izzy Knaus, a democracy fellow with the Straayer Center and one of the event coordinators, emphasized the importance of ensuring voters are informed about ranked choice voting ahead of the upcoming election.
“Larimer County is implementing ranked voting this year,” Knaus said. “It’s really important that students, which make up a huge part of the voting demographic in Fort Collins, understand what that is and how it works so that they can vote, and it’ll work out the way that it’s supposed to.”
Coldiron highlighted several benefits of ranked choice voting, including a higher likelihood of voter participation, increased engagement between candidates and voters and greater encouragement for new and diverse candidates to run. Additionally, ranked voting also reduces problems like vote-splitting, “spoiler” candidates and voters not feeling represented by the winner of an election.
One of the concerns about implementing ranked choice voting is that it is often too complicated for voters. Coldiron disagrees, pointing out that most people already use ranked voting in their everyday lives.
“We do ranked voting all the time,” Coldiron said. “We do it with sports teams, we do it with what beer you prefer, we do it with what restaurant you prefer. People are actually using this in their everyday lives already. To say now that it’s too complicated for elections is just not true.”
After the presentation, students filled out sample ballots using ranked choice voting to rank their preferences for CSU-related topics like study spots, ice cream flavors and on-campus coffee shops. Ice cream bars were also provided, making this hands-on activity a fun and engaging way to experience ranked voting firsthand in a familiar and relatable context.
Ella Kim, a chemistry student at CSU, said the event helped her better grasp how ranked choice voting works.
“When I started hearing about ranked choice voting, I thought that sounds a lot better than what’s going on right now, but I really don’t know what that is,” Kim said. “I was promised ice cream and knowledge, and I was given both.”
Reach Claire VanDeventer at news@collegian.com or on social media @CSUCollegian.
