Aside from all the races, nine questions will grace your ballot on Election Day. You may have seen the ads and you may have watched the Truth Tests, but there are more to these initiatives. Let's delve in, shall we?
1. UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE (Amendment 69) - FAILED
What it would do: Replaces most private health insurance with a state-run, single-payer system called ColoradoCare that would be paid for through new income and payroll taxes and run by an elected board. The new tax would be 10 percent and raise an estimated $25 billion, an amount roughly equal to all state spending. On wage income, the new tax would be divided between companies and their workers: employers would pay 6.67 percent with the employee paying 3.33 percent.
Learn more: Truth Test: The size of ColoradoCare, Balance of Power: Debating ColoradoCare, Truth Test: ColoradoCare's taxes, A live debate on Amendment 69
2. RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE (Amendment 70) - PASSED
What it would do: The state’s minimum wage would rise incrementally until it hits $12 per hour on Jan. 1, 2020.
Learn more: Balance of Power: Minimum wage
3. MAKING IT HARDER TO AMEND COLORADO’S CONSTITUTION (Amendment 71) - PASSED
What it would do: People hoping to amend the state constitution in the future would have to gather signatures each of Colorado’s 35 state Senate districts and get 55 percent of the vote on Election Day. Currently, campaigns must gather signatures from 5 percent of the voting population (it’s 5 percent of the number who voted for Secretary of State, which currently amounts to 98,492 signatures) and pass new amendments with a simple majority.
Learn more: Opposition to Amendment 71, 'Raise the Bar,' grows, Balance of Power: Changing Colorado's Constitution
4. TOBACCO TAXES (Amendment 72) - FAILED
What it would do: Cigarette taxes in Colorado would triple, with the new taxes predicted to raise more money than recreational marijuana currently does. The money would go to anti-tobacco and health campaigns, much of which would be awarded through state grants.
Learn more: Big Tobacco bankrolls 'No on 72' fight, Colorado to vote on tobacco tax, Truth Test: Ad blows smoke on cigarette taxes
5. PRESCRIPTION ASSISTED SUICIDE (Proposition 106) - PASSED
What it would do: Terminally ill people with six months or less left to live would be able to obtain prescriptions for self-administered medications to end their lives.
Learn more: Colorado voters to consider suicide drugs for terminally ill, Why 9NEWS uses the words assisted 'suicide'
6. PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY ELECTIONS (Proposition 107) - PASSED
What it would do: Coloradans would get to vote for their party’s presidential nominee in a state-run primary election that would happen before the third Tuesday in March rather than in caucuses run by the political parties.
Learn more: Presidential primary, open primary initiatives make Colorado ballot, Business-related Colorado amendments hold leads, polls find
7. OPEN PRIMARY ELECTIONS (Proposition 108) - PASSED
What it would do: Give Colorado residents who aren’t registered with a party the opportunity to vote in one party’s primary elections without registering with a party. More than a third of the state’s voters are unaffiliated.
8. REMOVE SLAVERY FROM CONSTITUTION (Amendment T) - TOO CLOSE TO CALL
What it would do: Remove a line from Colorado’s state constitution that permits slavery as punishment for a crime.
9. PROPERTY TAX EXEMPTION (Amendment U) - FAILED
What it would do: Create a tax exemption for people or private firms that earn less than $6,000 in profits from leasing government land or other property starting in 2018.
If this wasn't in-depth enough for you, check out the 2016 Colorado Blue Book, a cheat sheet of sorts to the amendments.
