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Ballots for the Aspen City Council runoff election will be mailed out next week, Aspen City Clerk Nicole Henning said.
Four candidates will advance to the runoff election for two open seats on the Aspen City Council. None of the six candidates vying for the two seats reached the threshold required to win outright during the election Tuesday.
Council candidates were required to garner 45%-plus-one of the votes to win outright — they would have needed at least 1,123 votes. Incumbent John Doyle earned 1,091 votes; Emily Kolbe earned 1,067; Christine Benedetti earned 1,018 and term-limited Mayor Torre earned 825. They will compete in the runoff election on Tuesday, April 1. In the runoff, the two top vote-getters will be elected to the city council.
Candidates Scot Woolley and Tyler Wilkinson-Ray will not advance to the runoff. Woolley garnered 630 votes and Wilkinson-Ray garnered 307. Maryann Pitt, who chose to drop out of the election but did not do so in time to remove her name from the ballot, received 47 votes.
Early voting will begin at Aspen City Hall on Monday, March 17. Another round of campaign finance reports will be due to the city clerk next week.
Voter turnout slightly decreased from the 2023 Aspen municipal election. This year, 2,718 people voted. In 2023, 2,810 people cast ballots.
The two council candidates who prevail in the April runoff will join a city council with a new mayor in Rachel Richards. Richards defeated Katy Frisch by 246 votes — Richards garnered 1,435 votes, or 54.7% of ballots cast, and Frisch garnered 1,189 votes, or 45.3% of ballots cast.
Runoff ballots can be returned by mail or dropped off at the ballot box located outside of Aspen City Hall at 427 Rio Grande Place. In-person voting will be available through 7 p.m. on April 1. A valid ID is required to vote in person.
The winning council candidates will be sworn in alongside Richards during the city council meeting on Tuesday, April 8. The vote tally from Tuesday will be verified Friday, Henning said.
Aspen City Council incumbent John Doyle was the top vote-getter in the race for two open seats on the city council Tuesday night. Doyle will join Emily Kolbe, Christine Benedetti and Torre in a runoff election on April 1.
Jason Charme/Aspen Daily News
A handful of voters who wanted to register to vote in the Tuesday election were not able to do so because the Pitkin County administration office closed at 5 p.m. instead of 7 p.m., Henning said.
Same-day registration is allowed in Colorado until voting closes at 7 p.m. City of Aspen voters must register with the county.
The Pitkin County Clerk’s office closed its office at its regular time because it did not receive a request from the city to remain open later to help with same-day registration, Pitkin County Clerk Ingrid Grueter told the Aspen Daily News.
The city has not needed to request the county remain open later on Election Day for same-day registration in the past, Henning said. It only impacted a couple of voters, she said, who tried to register after the county building closed.
The city is weighing moving the March municipal election to November, a move that Henning recommended to the city council in November and one that a number of city council candidates said they would support during the campaign.
Moving the election date from March to November would transition managing municipal elections to the Pitkin County elections division, which Henning previously argued would make running Aspen’s elections more efficient and remove the burden from the city clerk’s office.
Residents can also register to vote online at GoVoteColorado.gov.
Note: Candidate Christine Benedetti is married to Aspen Daily News publisher David Cook.