Amanda Gonzalez
Our Endorsement
Boulder Progressives is proud to endorse Amanda Gonzalez for Colorado Secretary of State. As Jefferson County's Clerk and Recorder and former head of Colorado Common Cause, Amanda has spent her career expanding ballot access, protecting redistricting fairness, and running secure, transparent elections. With democracy under sustained attack, we need a Secretary of State who has been doing this work her whole life — and Amanda is exactly that person.
"Our job is not just to protect the democracy we have — it is to build the democracy people deserve."
About Amanda
An attorney, elections expert, and former small business CEO, Amanda Gonzalez has built her career around making government work better for people. She currently serves as Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder — overseeing elections for one of Colorado's largest counties — and is recognized as one of the country's leading authorities on voting rights and redistricting. Her expertise has been sought by the Washington Post, Denver Post, 9News, and the Colorado Sun.
Before serving as Clerk, Amanda was Executive Director of Colorado Common Cause, where she worked to limit dark money, expand voting rights, and helped establish Colorado's independent redistricting commission. She has trained volunteer attorneys in Colorado election law, directed the state's largest nonpartisan election protection initiative in 2018 and 2020, and collaborated with legislators across party lines to advance ballot access legislation. She made history as the first Latina and openly queer person elected as Jefferson County Clerk.
Her earliest civic memory: as an elementary schooler, she went door to door encouraging votes for a school bond measure. That instinct — that everyday people should shape their government — has never left her. Amanda has lived in Jefferson County since 2012 and resides in Arvada with her senior rescue dog, Charlie.
Q&A with Amanda Gonzalez
How will you defend Colorado's elections against attacks from outside actors, including the president?
Colorado's elections are under attack from a coordinated movement that seeks to undermine public trust, restrict access to the ballot, and concentrate power in the hands of politicians instead of voters. I am the only candidate in this race who has actually run elections. In Jefferson County, I oversee elections for more than 425,000 voters and have successfully administered secure, transparent elections with record turnout. I also helped write many of the laws that make Colorado's elections a national model, including reforms that expanded ballot access and strengthened voter participation.
If outside actors — including the president or ICE — attempt to interfere, I will use every tool available to defend the constitutional authority of states to administer their own elections. That means fighting unlawful federal overreach in court, protecting voter data and election infrastructure, resisting attempts to restrict mail voting or intimidate election workers, and ensuring that Colorado voters — not politicians in Washington — decide Colorado elections. Colorado has built one of the strongest election systems in the country. I helped build that system, and I'm prepared to defend it.
How can we build confidence in the electoral process for all Coloradans, regardless of party?
Confidence in our elections is built when people know the system is working for them — not just for the powerful, not just for insiders, and not just for one political party. We cannot separate 'election confidence' from voter access. Efforts to make voting harder — through disinformation, voter suppression, attacks on mail voting, or intimidation of election workers — are attacks on public trust itself.
As Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder, I've worked to open up the election process instead of hiding it behind closed doors — expanding voter education, strengthening language access, and working directly with communities historically excluded from political power. I helped write laws that expanded ballot access because I believe democracy works best when everyone can participate, not when politicians get to pick and choose their voters. As Secretary of State, I will be unapologetic about protecting voting rights, standing up to election denialism, and pushing back against efforts to undermine confidence for personal or partisan gain.
What measures can improve transparency of LLC and corporate ownership?
For too long, wealthy individuals and corporations have been able to hide behind layers of shell companies and LLCs to avoid accountability, conceal assets, distort our housing market, and influence our economy and politics without meaningful public transparency. We need stronger transparency laws requiring disclosure of beneficial ownership — the real people who ultimately own or control an entity — particularly when LLCs are purchasing property, engaging in large financial transactions, or participating in political spending.
Coloradans deserve to know who is buying up housing in their communities and who is attempting to influence public policy. As Clerk and Recorder, I oversee recording services and understand firsthand how ownership structures obscure accountability. The Secretary of State isn't a legislative position, so I won't be able to change the laws myself — but I can advocate for greater accountability and create more transparent systems within the office.
How should Colorado modernize access to election data?
Colorado should have election data systems that reflect the values of transparency, accessibility, and public participation — not systems that feel stuck in the early 2000s. I experienced these barriers firsthand in my own campaign: we chose the Secretary of State voter file because the roughly $1,500 cost to access Democratic Party data systems was out of reach. The only reason we made it work is that we happened to have volunteers with deep data expertise. Many grassroots candidates, community organizations, and first-time campaigns don't have that support — and that creates a real equity problem in our democracy.
I believe we need to modernize both the technology and the philosophy: create secure, user-friendly digital systems that allow authorized users to access voter data online without mailed paperwork or CD-ROMs, and review the fee structure so cost isn't unnecessarily preventing participation by smaller organizations. Public election data belongs to the public.
Do you support online petition signing at the state level?
I support exploring secure online petition signing at the state level. Too often, civic participation is treated as something that should be difficult or inconvenient. Government should be asking the opposite question: how do we remove barriers while maintaining security and public trust? I was one of the architects of Colorado's automatic voter registration system because I believe government should proactively help eligible people participate in democracy.
Online petition signing has the potential to make civic engagement more accessible for working people, young voters, people with disabilities, and rural communities. As Secretary of State, I would work collaboratively with local governments, technologists, cybersecurity experts, and community stakeholders to evaluate how Colorado could responsibly implement secure digital petition access — building on our track record of embracing modernization while maintaining strong security standards.