The Colorado Title Board has approved six citizen-led initiatives for signature gathering. Each must collect 124,238 valid signatures from registered voters to appear on the November 2026 ballot.
Democrats control the governor’s office and both chambers of the General Assembly. Republicans haven’t held a state Senate supermajority since 1990. Conservatives seeking policy changes must bypass the legislature and take issues directly to voters through the petition process.
Initiative #81 requires state universities to automatically admit the top 10% of Colorado high school graduates by GPA. According to Title Board filings, sponsors Kiran Herz and Jaiden Hwang are Cherry Creek High School seniors running a grassroots campaign.
Initiative #95 requires law enforcement to notify federal immigration authorities within 72 hours when charging someone with a violent crime, or any crime if the person has a prior felony, when lawful presence cannot be verified. The measure overrides sanctuary protections passed by the Democratic legislature in 2019, 2021, and 2025. Advance Colorado, which filed 61 of 87 initiatives this cycle, sponsors the measure.
Initiative #108 elevates child sex trafficking from a Class 2 to Class 1 felony with mandatory life imprisonment without parole. A similar bill died in a Democratic-controlled House committee in 2024 over mandatory minimum concerns. Protect Kids Colorado sponsors the measure with legal counsel from former Secretary of State Scott Gessler.
Initiative #109 requires school athletic teams to be designated male, female, or coed based on biological sex. Males cannot compete on female teams. Protect Kids Colorado sponsors.
Initiative #110 prohibits healthcare professionals from performing surgery on minors to alter biological sex characteristics and bans state funding for such procedures. Protect Kids Colorado sponsors.
Initiative #175 requires all state revenue collected for road transportation to be spent on roads. Funds currently directed to transit, bike lanes, and electric vehicle infrastructure would be redirected. The Colorado Contractors Association and Chamber of Commerce support the measure.
Colorado law sets the signature threshold at 5% of votes cast for Secretary of State in the previous general election. Sponsors have six months from Title Board approval to collect signatures but must submit no later than three months before the election. The 2026 deadline is August 3.
The Secretary of State verifies signatures through random sampling. Petitions showing fewer than 90% valid signatures fail. Petitions showing more than 110% valid signatures qualify. Results between 90% and 110% trigger a full count of every signature.
Constitutional amendments require additional hurdles. Sponsors must collect signatures from at least 2% of registered voters in each of Colorado’s 35 senate districts. Voter approval requires 55%, not simple majority. Initiatives #95 and #175 are constitutional amendments. The other four are statutory.
If passed, #95 would dismantle Colorado’s sanctuary framework and restore cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. Initiatives #109 and #110 would reverse protections for transgender minors enacted under Democratic governance. Initiative #108 would impose the state’s harshest penalty for child trafficking. Initiative #175 would defund transit expansion projects statewide.
In 2024, Protect Kids Colorado attempted similar transgender-related measures and collected barely half the required signatures. In 2020, Unite for Colorado — now Advance Colorado — was fined $40,000 for failing to register as an issue committee while spending millions on ballot initiatives. In 2016, voters approved Amendment 71, raising the threshold for constitutional amendments to 55% specifically to make citizen initiatives harder to pass.
Protect Kids Colorado has partnered with the Colorado Catholic Conference for this cycle. The state’s four bishops directed all parishes to host signature collection weekends in September, October, and November. The organization claims 1,000 volunteers across 60 counties and is targeting 200,000 signatures by January.
Approval by the Title Board does not guarantee ballot placement.
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