Amanda Gonzalez has been facing threats to our elections for years, and winning.
Colorado's next Secretary of State will face threats to our elections from day one. Amanda Gonzalez is the Democratic nominee and the only candidate in this race who has run an election. As Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder, she runs elections for nearly half a million voters.
She is an election attorney who helped write the laws that made Colorado a national model for voting, fought for policies that help voters, and she taught election law at the University of Denver.
If elected, she would make history as Colorado's first Latina and first openly LGBTQ Secretary of State.
A lifelong commitment to democracy.
Amanda's first memory of civic engagement was going lawn chair to lawn chair at the local park when she was in elementary school. As parents watched their kids at soccer and t-ball, she asked them to vote yes on a school bond measure to fund permanent classrooms at her school. She learned early that if you want a better community, you talk to your neighbors and you vote for it.
If you want a better community, you talk to your neighbors and you vote for it.
Since those early days in the park, her work has only grown. She has become one of the country's leading voices on elections, voting and redistricting, sought out by the Washington Post, TIME, The Boston Globe, CPR and more.
At every stage of her career, Amanda has asked the same question: does this system work for everyone, or just a few? For her, democracy isn't just about casting a ballot. It's about whether people can afford a home, earn a fair wage, get health care when they need it, feel safe in their communities and whether all of us get an equal say in shaping that future.
The job is running elections. Amanda already does it.
The job is running elections. Amanda already does it. The Secretary of State's most important job is overseeing elections. Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or Unaffiliated voter, Amanda will protect your right to vote. She does that now for Jefferson County's nearly 600,000 residents, along with running five motor vehicle offices and managing public records for the county.
Most votes cast in Colorado
Jefferson County cast more votes than any other Colorado county in 2023 and 2025, even though it ranks fourth in population. Her office reached record turnout while cutting costs by millions.
23,000 voters kept on the rolls
When election deniers used legal loopholes to try to remove 23,000 Jefferson County voters, Amanda's office stopped them. The voters stayed registered, and the same approach went on to protect voters across Colorado.
Election workers protected
Amanda has worked with the Department of Justice and federal authorities on election interference, and she has protected the election workers who make the system run.
National awards two years in a row
Her office earned Election Assistance Commission Clearinghouse Awards in 2023 and 2024 for innovation and voter education.
No politician, no billionaire, no party gets to decide whether your vote counts.
Amanda Gonzalez
She helped write the rules, too.
Amanda has also shaped the laws Colorado's elections run on. As Executive Director of Colorado Common Cause, and later as Clerk, she helped draft:
Independent redistricting
Took map-drawing away from politicians and gave it to independent commissions. Colorado voters passed both.
Automatic voter registration
Registered more than 250,000 new voters in its first year.
An end to prison gerrymandering
Counts incarcerated people as residents of their home communities instead of the prison's.
Multilingual ballots
Expanded translated ballots from 6 counties to 20 and created a statewide translator hotline.
When more people can vote, more people belong.
Amanda has spent her career making sure the people who are most often left out of elections, of government, of the systems that are supposed to serve them, get included.
When she became Clerk, she found that of roughly 850 eligible voters in the Jefferson County jail, only three had voted in 2022. They had the right to vote and no real way to use it.
People told her voting from jail couldn't be done. Amanda worked with people who had lived it and with community partners to write SB24-072, and Colorado became the first state to require in-person voting in every county jail. Jefferson County jail went from 3 voters to nearly 350. Statewide, more than 2,300 Coloradans voted from jail, nearly ten times as many as in 2022.
On the first day of voting, one man told Amanda it was one of the top five experiences of his life. He said it made him feel like he mattered.
Making government work for business owners too.
The Secretary of State also runs Colorado's business and licensing systems. Amanda ran a small business here, where she doubled profits while increasing staff diversity and creating her industry's first philanthropic program, so she knows what it's like to deal with those systems from the other side of the counter.
Recognition.
Colorado Hispanic Bar Association, outstanding young attorney
Colorado LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce, 40 Under 40
Denver Business Journal, 40 Under 40
NY Mag, a "Youngish" Democrat to watch
Off Hours.
Amanda calls Jefferson County home. When she's not running elections or working on policy, you can usually find her scouring the Front Range with friends for Colorado's best wine, tacos, donuts or dumplings, or at home cuddling with her senior rescue dog, Charlie.
She brings her whole self to this work because she believes democracy belongs to all of us, or it doesn't work at all.
You get a star if you read this far.
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