June 18, 2026 04:30 PM UTC

New Guide Aims To Guard Against Deception by Petition Gatherers for Ballot Measures

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• by: Jamie O'Rourke

(Beware liars bearing clipboards — Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Originally posted at the Colorado Times Recorder

With less than six months to go until the 2026 election, the forecast shows a high chance that Coloradans will have another long ballot this year. Hundreds of citizen ballot initiatives have been submitted to Colorado’s Title Board for this election, of which five have been approved, and backers of over two dozen are currently collecting signatures to qualify.

A new resource, called “Before You Sign,” from the Bell Policy Center, a progressive economic nonprofit, aims to inform voters who are asked to sign petitions that are required to place initiatives on the November ballot.

“There’s just a deficit of information during the petition circulation phase,” said Bell Policy Center Director Chris DeGruy Kennedy, “And we always hear these stories of voters who, you know, sign a petition and then end up regretting it, thinking, ‘Oh, they told me it was this, but it wasn’t really about that, or they told me I just needed to sign it to put it on the ballot, but I had no idea that there would be millions of dollars behind trying to pass this measure in the fall, and I wish I hadn’t signed for that reason. And so we just thought in fact that there really does need to be a resource for people who are trying to understand what’s going on with all these petitions, what these really mean.”

Many of those ballot initiatives are connected to Advance Colorado, a conservative political organization that does not disclose its donors.

In December, a Colorado Times Recorder investigation found that paid signature gatherers for Advance Colorado’s Initiative #95, which would empower U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) by forcing local law enforcement to cooperate with the agency, had convinced numerous Boulder voters to sign their petitions under false pretenses. Circulators claimed that the initiative would rein in ICE, as well as “limiting deportation to violent criminals and felons only.”

It’s not the first time paid signature-gathering firms have been caught misleading voters about their petitions. And if you get misled into signing a petition, there’s little recourse beyond filing an individual complaint with the Secretary of State’s office.

“It really has been very widespread that a lot of these folks are getting paid per signature. And they don’t particularly care what the issue is that they’re circulating petitions for, so they’re just willing to say whatever needs to be said in order to get that signature and get them paid,” Kennedy told the Colorado Times Recorder. “I think it really relies on the management of the paid circulation firm to hold their staff accountable to this. And that’s where we’ve seen the difference, that some firms have a really good job managing their staff and training them on telling the truth about what these things do, instead of just using political slogans or, worse, outright deception.”

“Before You Sign” is similar in structure to a ballot guide, covering all the initiatives that have been approved by the Title Board but have yet to qualify for the ballot. Much like a ballot guide, it provides arguments for and against any given initiative, including one backed by the Bell Policy Center.

The guide for Initiative #195, a proposal backed by the Bell Policy Center and other progressive groups, which would institute a graduated income tax, meaning higher income taxes for those with higher incomes, shows arguments from both sides. Proponents argue that the measure, if passed, would make wealthy Coloradans pay proportionally more, helping to fund government services. Opponents argue that raising taxes could ultimately drive businesses out of Colorado.

“Educating the public about significant public policy conversations is fundamental to our mission, and we believed that we would have more success in providing this educational resource to the general public if we did not take an advocacy position on these things,” said Kennedy. “So even our ‘Before You Sign’ write-up of #195 doesn’t advocate for it. Now, obviously, there are other resources on the Bell website that will advocate for it. But we’ve really worked hard to keep them separate.”

The guide breaks up the initiatives currently requiring signatures to make the ballot into five categories.

“Constitutional Rights” covers multiple consequential conservative initiatives. Advance Colorado is running Initiative #177, an oil & gas boosting measure that would enshrine a right to buy and sell natural gas in the Colorado Constitution, making it much more difficult to regulate oil producers or phase out gas-powered energy.

According to records from the Secretary of State’s office, 16 different firms have officially registered to gather signatures for #177, including Victor’s Canvassing, the GOP-linked firm whose circulators misled voters on Initiative #95 last year.

Two longtime anti-abortion activists are also gathering signatures for a measure to repeal Colorado’s constitutional right to abortion, passed in 2024. No paid firms have registered to collect signatures for this measure at this time.

“Funding & Taxation” covers the graduated income tax initiative, as well as a dueling measure by Advance Colorado aiming to cap the income tax at 4.4%, where it currently stands. This measure, #232, has 15 firms registered to gather signatures, again including Victor’s Canvassing.

“Voting & Ballot Language” concerns two more right-wing initiatives. Advance Colorado is backing Initiative #234, which requires ballot questions to be written at an 8th-grade reading level and prevents state law from mandating extra information be added under certain circumstances. Seventeen firms have registered to collect signatures for this initiative, including Blitz Canvassing, which is owned by longtime GOP operative Josh Penry.

Initiative #362, which would tighten restrictions on mail-in voting, was submitted by conservative lawyer Suzanne Taheri of West Group, who has also submitted a large number of initiatives alongside Advance Colorado’s Michael Fields. 15 firms are registered to carry petitions, again including Blitz Canvassing.

“Redistricting” concerns multiple initiatives aimed at changing how Colorado congressional districts are drawn to give Democrats an edge in future election years, in response to Republican states’ efforts to redistrict in the GOP’s favor. One firm is registered for #240, while four are carrying #241 and #242.

Counter-initiatives from Advance Colorado, #251 and #256, aim to block these measures by prohibiting mid-decade redistricting, which would set the state’s current four Democrat/three Republican/one swing Congressional district makeup in stone. Only two firms are registered to carry petitions for #251, but 14 are registered for #256, once again including Blitz Canvassing.

The final category, “Separation from the United States Government,” is an odd one out, and contains no influence from Advance Colorado. It encompasses five initiatives, all aimed at letting voters decide whether the state of Colorado should secede from the United States of America. No firms are registered to collect signatures for these initiatives at this time.

Kennedy says he’s hopeful that “Before You Sign” will be used widely in the lead-up to this year’s election and beyond.

“We’ve seen significant increases in our website traffic around this from the people that have shared it already,” he told the Colorado Times Recorder. “And so we’re hoping that this year, you know, some number of thousands of people see it, and it influences their thinking, and we can just continue to scale up.”

RELATED: Paid Signature Gatherers Mislead Voters About Pro-ICE Ballot Initiative