Advocates for a Denver voter initiative that would institute a public financing system and drastically lower contribution limits for city elections came up 423 petition signatures short of making the Nov. 7 ballot.

Denver 2017 election guide $937 million bond package and the Green Roof Initiative are on the ballot

But organizers didn’t give up, and on Thursday, the Denver Elections Division confirmed that the “Democracy for the People” campaign finance reform initiative finally had collected enough signatures.

Denver voters won’t face the question, though, for another year — in the November 2018 election — so long as the initiative clears a protest period that ends Nov. 27.

The measure, if approved, would lower contribution limits by as much as two-thirds for candidates for Denver mayor, City Council, city auditor, and clerk and recorder. For mayoral candidates, the current maximum $3,000-per-donor limit would be cut to $1,000.

The Democracy for the People petition for an Initiated Ordinance has been deemed sufficient and will appear on the November 6, 2018 ballot. — Denver Elections (@DenverElections) November 2, 2017

The initiative also would require the city to set aside about $2 million a year — or $8 million per cycle — to pay for a voluntary public financing system. That would provide 9-to-1 matching of contributions up to $50. To benefit from the program, candidates would have to agree to even more stringent contribution limits.

“The biggest thing for us is always the small-donor matching,” even on an opt-in basis, said Jon Biggerstaff, an organizer who formerly worked with a group called Clean Slate Now Action. “It’s really what makes the difference. The (U.S.) Supreme Court says we can’t stop money from flowing in.

“The only way the average voter would be able to compete with (high amounts of) money on the other side of the aisle is through that small-donor matching.”

It’s a little murky whether all of the changes, if approved next year, would take effect for the May 2019 city elections, or whether some would be delayed until the 2023 municipal cycle.

Biggerstaff and other organizers spent about six weeks this summer collecting signatures on ballot petitions, hoping to qualify the initiative for next week’s election.

But in late August, the Elections Division found after reviewing 5,997 submitted signatures that only 4,303 were valid — short of the 4,726 threshold to make the ballot. On Tuesday, the organizers turned in 1,100 more signatures, of which 791 were deemed valid — pushing the total 368 past the requirement.

The other members of the petitioners’ committee are Derrick Blankton, Owen Perkins, Candi CdeBaca and Anthony Pigford.

Here are the initiative’s main features

One element of the initiative — requiring more public disclosure for uncoordinated spending in support of or against candidates and ballot issues — overlaps with an ordinance change that the City Council approved in September. That action occurred after Biggerstaff’s group had drafted its measure.

Public financing for local elections, available currently in a handful of U.S. cities that include New York City, may become the most controversial part of the initiative.

Indeed, the major changes proposed by the initiative would go much farther than Denver city officials have been willing to consider in recent years:

Contribution limits: Besides cutting donor limits to mayoral contenders by one-third, the initiative would reduce contributions to candidates for the two at-large council seats, auditor, and clerk from $2,000 to $700. Candidates for the council’s 11 district seats would be able to accept $400 per donor, down from $1,000 now.

Those limits are closer to the maximum amounts set by the state, including $575 per donor for gubernatorial candidates and $200 per donor for legislative candidates. The Denver initiative would peg the city’s new limits to inflation, with adjustments made every four years.

Public financing: The initiative would require city officials to set aside in the budget $2.88 per year per city resident, or $2 million based on Denver’s population of about 700,000. To receive matching funds — the first $50 of each contribution would net $450 in public money — candidates would have to agree to voluntary per-donor limits. Those would be $500 for mayor, $350 for at-large council seats, clerk and auditor, and $200 for district council seats.

But there would be limits on how much in matching funds a candidate’s committee could receive. Mayoral candidates could max out at $750,000 in public matching funds, with limits set at $250,000 for candidates for at-large council seats, the clerk and the auditor, and at $125,000 for district council seats.

There are other catches. Candidates who opt in would have to agree to face their opponents in at least two public debates before the general election, plus another debate if there’s a runoff. And they couldn’t accept contributions from people connected to or seeking city contracts worth $500,000 or more.

Some donors barred: The initiative also would ban contributions to local candidates by corporations and labor unions. The corporate prohibition covers several types of companies.

Biggerstaff said the upside of missing the cutoff for next week’s election is that organizers now have a full year to put together a campaign to build support for the initiative.