I wanted to flag a lawsuit that Harvard Law School’s Election Law Clinic filed today on behalf of Citizens Project, Colorado Latinos Vote, the League of Women Voters of the Pikes Peak Region, and the Black/Latino Leadership Coalition. The suit challenges the non-November timing of Colorado Springs’s municipal elections under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. This unusual timing (nearly unique among Colorado cities) massively disadvantages the city’s minority voters. They turn out at only about half the rate of the city’s white voters in municipal elections — compared to a ratio closer to four-fifths in November elections. Recent academic literature also finds that off-cycle elections undermine substantive minority representation more than any other electoral policy — even more so than at-large elections, the classic target of Section 2 suits. The Clinic’s description of the case is below, and the complaint can be found here.

When an election is held—no less than where or how an election is conducted—may result in unlawful racial discrimination in voting, as it does in Colorado Springs.  Colorado Springs holds elections in April of odd-numbered years, a practice that suppresses turnout, especially among nonwhite voters. The burden imposed by the City’s election timing is linked to social and historical conditions that have and currently engender discrimination against minority residents.  And all three branches of the federal government have recognized that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act reaches the time an election is held.  Colorado Springs is an outlier among Colorado municipalities in holding its municipal elections in April of odd-numbered years.

The City’s unusual election timing has a disparate impact on minority voters.  While turnout drops generally in non-November elections, the drop is especially stark for Hispanic and Black voters.  In the City’s April elections, non-white turnout is roughly half of white turnout.  By contrast, in November elections, non-white turnout is roughly 80% of white turnout, reflecting a meaningful but much improved difference.

The disproportionate negative impact of these unusually timed municipal elections extends beyond voter participation.  Hispanic and Black residents are also starkly underrepresented in the City’s government, and the City Council is consistently less responsive to their needs and interests.  Their concerns about police violence, public health, education, housing, and city funding decisions have often been ignored.

Citizens Project, Colorado Latinos Vote, the League of Women Voters of the Pikes Peak Region, and the Black/Latino Leadership Coalition all work to boost turnout in Colorado Springs, and the April elections deplete their resources and divert them from other activities. They seek to end the practice and prevent the City from holding future non-November elections.