Colorado Democrats violated the state’s open meetings law when they used a secret ballot to gauge lawmakers’ budget priorities, a Denver judge has ruled.

Friday’s court decision agreed with a challenge brought by conservative groups against Colorado Democrats’ practice in recent years of using an internal voting system to determine spending priorities. In the process, called quadratic voting, legislators anonymously registered their varying degrees of support for spending measures by allocating a limited number of points.

Democratic leaders argued the process wasn’t a true vote, but rather that its outcome was a data point that members considered as they decided how to spend limited state money. While the unofficial vote was secret, they contended it was more representative than the prior practice in which key members of the legislative majority set funding priorities without broader input.

But that secrecy is what Denver District Court Judge David H. Goldberg took issue with, even while agreeing that the tool could be valuable for figuring out lawmakers’ broad interests quickly.

“Simply put, ranking a bill and emphasizing the importance of a bill evidences that legislator’s mental impressions, including strategic considerations, trading relationships, and sympathetic ideologies with other legislators,” Goldberg wrote. “These considerations may conflict or be consonant with a position that the legislator has taken with his or her constituents. The public has the right to know.”

The Public Trust Institute, a conservative nonprofit, and David Fornof, a Douglas County resident represented by the Advance Colorado Institute, brought the lawsuit challenging the process in July.

“The court was right to invalidate this secret voting system which was deliberately designed to keep Coloradans in the dark and help legislators avoid taking heat back in their districts,” Michael Fields, president of Advance Colorado, said in a statement.

Democrats hold historic majorities in the legislature. House Speaker Julie McCluskie and Senate President Steve Fenberg expressed disappointment in a joint statement and said they were still reviewing the ruling.

The 2024 legislative session begins Wednesday.

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