Last updated Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Two neighbors in 80127 can open their ballots this October and find different lengths of paper. Most of the zip is unincorporated Jefferson County, so the City of Littleton's questions never reach it, and which fire district or water district you pay tells you which local questions you'll see. This page sorts the November 3 ballot by who actually votes on what, in plain English, with what each measure does and what it costs where the certified paperwork says. Every entry comes from the certifying body's own document, not from a campaign.
This page covers ballot measures only. Hogback Post doesn't cover candidates. For the races, the Jefferson County Clerk's election page and the League of Women Voters of Jeffco's forum schedule are the nonpartisan places to start.
The Secretary of State certified 14 statewide measures on September 4. Thirteen came from citizen petitions and one from the legislature. Amendments change the state constitution and need 55 percent to pass. Propositions change state law and need a simple majority. The state's Blue Book, with the official fiscal analysis of each one, mails by October 2 and hadn't been posted as of September 23. I'll add its numbers here when it is.
Amendment 81, law enforcement reporting to federal authorities. Requires police to notify federal immigration authorities when someone charged with a violent crime, or any crime after a prior felony, can't show lawful presence. Citizen petition.
Amendment 82, a right to natural gas. Writes a right to buy natural gas for cooking and heating, and for utilities to sell it, into the constitution. Citizen petition.
Amendment 83, a right to hunt and fish. Establishes a constitutional right to hunt, fish, and harvest wildlife by traditional methods, with the state keeping its authority to regulate for conservation and safety. Citizen petition.
Amendment 84, ID on mail ballots. Requires you to write the last four digits of your Social Security number or your Colorado driver's license or ID number on the outside of your mail-ballot envelope, with a cure process. An envelope that isn't fixed doesn't get counted. Citizen petition.
Amendment 85, plain-language ballots. Requires state and local ballot questions to be written at an eighth-grade reading level or below. Citizen petition.
Amendment 86, congressional redistricting. Locks the current independent redistricting process into the constitution and restricts changes to maps without public meetings, the commission, and Supreme Court approval. Citizen petition.
Amendment 87, a graduated income tax. The certified title opens with the number: state taxes increased by $2.7 billion a year. It replaces Colorado's flat income tax with graduated rates, keeps the 4.4 percent rate on gains from selling your primary residence, and directs the money to K-12, health care, and early child care. The certified table shows the average tax bill falling $210 for incomes between $50,001 and $100,000 and rising $4,764 between $1,000,001 and $2,000,000. Citizen petition.
Proposition NN, K-12 funding. Raises state K-12 investment 2 percent a year for ten years for teacher pay, retention, smaller classes, and career-technical programs, funded inside the existing TABOR cap as a voter-approved revenue change, with an annual independent audit. Referred by the legislature (Senate Bill 26-135).
Proposition 132, fentanyl penalties. Raises felony classifications for distributing, making, selling, and possessing fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, mandates treatment for some possession felonies, and narrows sentencing exemptions. Citizen petition.
Proposition 133, trafficking of a minor. Expands the offense to include trading anything of value for sexual activity with a minor and raises the penalty to life without parole. Citizen petition.
Proposition 134, school sports by sex. Restricts K-12 and college sports participation by sex as the measure defines it, requires male, female, and coed team designations, and lets females play on male teams where no female team exists. Citizen petition.
Proposition 135, surgeries on minors. Bars surgery on a minor to alter sex characteristics and bars state and federal funds, Medicaid, or insurance from paying for it. Citizen petition.
Proposition 136, an income tax cap. Caps the state income tax rate at 4.4 percent of federal taxable income for individuals and corporations. Citizen petition.
Proposition 137, sporting-goods tax for conservation. Lets the state keep and spend a share of the sales tax it already collects on sporting goods, no new tax, for water, land, and forest conservation, wildfire prevention, and outdoor recreation. Citizen petition.
Full certified text for all 14 is on the Secretary of State's 2026 ballot measures page.
Jefferson County's own government referred no countywide question this year, and as of September 23 the county clerk's ballot page still said its sample ballot would post in late September. One regional district did put a question on every Jeffco ballot.
Ballot Issue 7A, Front Range Passenger Rail. A new 0.333 percent sales and use tax, one-third of a cent per dollar, across the rail district's 13 counties, Jefferson included, to build and run passenger rail along the Front Range, with Littleton named among the connected communities. The certified title puts it at $295 million a year in new taxes and authorizes $580 million in debt with a repayment cost of $785 million. Groceries, gas, home utilities, prescriptions, and medical supplies are exempt. Referred by the Front Range Passenger Rail District board under Senate Bill 26-172. It's on your ballot whether you're inside Littleton or out. For what it's worth as a matter of public record, the county commissioners' September 23 agenda carried resolutions taking a support position on 7A and on Amendment 87 and an oppose position on Amendment 84, plus two bundles of other measures. Their positions, not mine, and not yours.
Littleton runs its city elections in odd years, and the city clerk's page lists no 2026 question. If your address is inside city limits, your ballot carries the statewide and county-level items above and the district items below that apply to you. Nothing city-specific.
Jeffco Public Schools, two mill levy questions. Every 80127 address feeds a Jeffco school, so both are on every ballot here. The school board referred them August 20, and as of September 23 the district's own page still showed the ballot letters as blank, so I can't give you 5A and 5B yet. The first raises $73 million a year starting with 2027 collections, a mill levy override for staff pay and retention and career-technical programs, with spending reviewed by a citizens' committee. The second raises $60 million a year, a special-purpose mill under the Debt-Free Schools Act for construction, technology, maintenance, and safety. The district's own math: if both pass, $3.50 a month for every $100,000 of your home's actual value, so a $650,000 house pays about $22.75 a month, or about $273 a year. Both numbers and the example are the district's, from its ballot page.
West Metro Fire, Ballot Issue 7C. A new 0.75 percent sales tax inside the fire district, 75 cents on a $100 purchase, excluding groceries, gas, and medicine, for firefighting and paramedic staffing, equipment, and wildfire response, with monthly board review and an annual audit. The certified title puts it at up to $36.3 million in the first year. Referred by the district board. Whether it's on your ballot depends on which fire district you're in: West Metro's own page lists "sections of Jefferson County and unincorporated Littleton" among the places it serves, and South Metro's page lists the City of Littleton. The district name is on your property tax statement, and the question is on the ballot only if you're inside West Metro. The district's own page is here.
Foothills Park & Recreation, Ken-Caryl Ranch Metropolitan District, Platte Canyon, Southwest Metro: nothing. None of the four posted a November question, and Ken-Caryl's own mill-levy page still describes the 2024 measure as archived history. If one of them certified something the county's list shows and their sites don't, it goes here the day I see it.
The county clerk says ballots go in the mail October 5 and drop boxes open the same day. The state's deadline for every active voter's packet to be sent is October 9. October 26 is the last day to register and still be mailed a ballot, and Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. The TABOR notice, the blue pamphlet with the pro and con statements for every tax question, mails by October 2. If you want the arguments for and against, that's where they live by law, and this page isn't going to add its own.
If a district question shows up on your ballot that isn't here, tell me: [email protected]. The free Friday newsletter tracks anything that changes between now and November 3, and this page gets the results the week after.
More field guides from the Post: what's going in there, the running answer on every project in the zip, and the trails page.
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