Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Meet the Faces of Democracy: Carly Koppes (R-CO)

Michael Beckel, Mia Minkin, and Ariana Rojas are part of the research department at Issue One, the leading crosspartisan political reform group in Washington, D.C., uniting Republicans, Democrats, and independents in the movement to fix our broken political system and build an inclusive democracy that works for everyone.

Editor’s note: Roughly 10,000 officials across the country run U.S. elections. This interview is part of a series published each month that highlights the election heroes and heroines who are the faces of democracy.


Republican Carly Koppes is the clerk and recorder in Weld County, Colorado, a sprawling, 4,000 square mile, largely agricultural county in the northeastern part of the state.

A former rodeo queen with a second degree black belt in American Kenpo karate, Koppes has been working in the clerk and recorder’s office for roughly 19 years — since June 2004. She started in the office ahead of the 2004 election as a temporary worker, as a favor to her grandmother, a Democrat who once worked on John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign and volunteered as an election judge well into her 70s.

When Koppes was elected as clerk and recorder in 2014, she earned the distinction of being the youngest person ever elected as Weld County’s clerk and recorder. Koppes has worked more than 30 elections.

Born and raised in Greeley, Colorado, Koppes currently owns five horses, and enjoys fishing, gardening, and crafts. She is a past president of the Colorado County Clerks Association, and she currently serves on the Local Leadership Council of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Since 2022, she has been part of Issue One’s Faces of Democracy project advocating for protections for election workers and for regular, predictable, and sufficient federal funding of elections.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Issue One: How did you end up in this profession?

Carly Koppes: Completely by accident is how I ended up in this profession! I was graduating high school in May of 2004, and the clerk and recorder prior to me had asked my grandmother if any of her grandkids needed a job, because he was needing temporary help for the presidential election in 2004. My grandmother called me up. I came in and interviewed, and I became a temporary employee for the presidential election. And 19 years later, here I am.

Issue One: How many voters are on the rolls in your jurisdiction, and what are the main challenges of a jurisdiction of that size?

Carly Koppes: We are a little over 220,000 registered voters here in Weld County. Not only is it a challenge with that many, but I am also a little over 4,000 square miles.

One of the biggest challenges is communication. The ability to communicate to one section of Weld County can be easy because it is urban. But trying to have that same communication to a rural area is super challenging.

Issue One: If you could speak to one common misconception about election administration, what would you want to clear up?

Carly Koppes: There isn’t any type of Wizard of Oz-ery going on. I understand the gravity and responsibility of running elections. I understand that the ballot is everybody’s greatest equalizer, not only in my county and state, but the nation. The ballot doesn’t know if you’ve got two cents in the bank or two million dollars in the bank. Both of those ballots are exactly equal in the eyes of what we do.

The people like myself in election offices, we understand the responsibility that it is on our shoulders. We have a living, breathing government in the United States, which is fantastic. We are the gatekeepers to that living and breathing government. It would be really nice for people to remember that I’m human just like they are human. I’m a real person too.

Issue One: What is the price tag of running an election in Weld County?

Carly Koppes: It depends on the election. For this upcoming, coordinated November election, we are probably looking at between $500,000 and $700,000 for everything that we need to do. That’s including election judges [as poll workers in Colorado are known], printing costs, equipment maintenance, and all that kind of stuff.

Next year, we have three elections we need to run here in Colorado. We’ve got the presidential primary, then the June primary, and then the November general election. We’re probably going to be looking at about $1.5 million to $1.7 million solely for the general election. And the two others combined will probably be around $1 million.

Issue One: A lot of people are surprised to learn that the federal government doesn’t routinely fund election administration. Why do you think the federal government should regularly fund elections?

Carly Koppes: They should pay some of the burdens of this because we are running their elections for them. We are running the U.S. House of Representative elections. We are running the U.S. Senate elections. We are running the presidential elections.

Issue One: If your jurisdiction had extra funding, how would you spend it?

Carly Koppes: Advancing audits of results and transparency, and being able to adequately pay these amazing poll workers that we call election judges, and being able to adequately support and pay my year-round election team.

Issue One: A lot of jurisdictions have limited funding for elections. What tips or tricks of the trade have you utilized to get the most bang for the buck in your area?

Carly Koppes: Budget, budget, budget. And pilot anything and everything you possibly can. That has been the best way for us to make advancements and really try and utilize each dollar to the best of our buck.

Issue One: What practices have you employed to help you run elections efficiently?

Carly Koppes: We are always just looking for ways that we can be efficient but still keep our security and transparency up. We have implemented different technologies to try and assist with that. For instance, Weld County invested in automatic signature verification technology to help us with the signature verification part of our process. And one of the other biggest things that helps us be efficient is when we have our volunteers return election after election after election, because they are just continuing to build on their knowledge.

Issue One: What kinds of gaps or challenges exist in places that might be struggling to be more efficient?

Carly Koppes: When we see a county struggle, it’s because they don’t have the funding, and they also just don’t have the volunteers. They don’t have the amount of election judges that they need to be as quick with what they are needing to do in the timeframe that they have. It really does come down to that.

Issue One: Is there anything else you’d like to say about why it’s important for elections to receive more regular and consistent federal funding?

Carly Koppes: The last thing that we want is for us to become vulnerable at any point in time, especially since elections have been designated critical infrastructure at the federal level. We have seen what the mis-, dis-, and mal-information campaigns have done to our credibility. More funding right now would be so important because we need to focus on getting the correct information out there and battle these people who have larger microphones than I do. Unfortunately, nobody really knows who Carly Koppes is, but everyone knows who [My Pillow CEO and election denier] Mike Lindell is.

Issue One: What is your favorite book or movie about politics?

Carly Koppes: I really wish there was actually a book written about my grandmother. She was one of the only female people who was on John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign. She ran his campaign on the Western Slope in Colorado.

Issue One: Outside of being passionate about running safe and secure elections, what are your hobbies, or what’s a fun fact that most people might not know about you?

Carly Koppes: I’ve been on the back of a horse since the time I could sit up. I have done all sorts of dialects — English riding, Western riding, rodeoing. That’s one thing that I absolutely love. I still have five horses, and I’ve got two under two. That’s been super fun. They crack me up every single day.

And then another random thing that people don’t usually know about me is that I actually am a second degree black belt in American Kenpo karate. I’ve been studying karate since I was three years old.

Issue One: I hope you’ve never had to use karate on the job.

Carly Koppes: I have not had to use karate on the job, thank goodness. Even when I had people pounding on the door, I didn’t have to, so we’re good.

Read More

Xavier Becerra Steps Back Into California Politics

Xavier Becerra

Xavier Becerra Steps Back Into California Politics

Xavier Becerra is once again stepping onto familiar ground. After serving in Congress, leading California’s Department of Justice, and joining President Joe Biden’s Cabinet as Secretary of Health and Human Services, he is now seeking the governorship of his home state. His campaign marks both a return to local politics and a renewed confrontation with Donald Trump, now back in the White House.

Becerra’s message combines pragmatism and resistance. “We’ll continue to be a leader, a fighter, and a vision of what can be in the United States,” he said in his recent interview with Latino News Network. He recalled his years as California’s attorney general, when he “had to take him on” to defend the state’s laws and families. Between 2017 and 2021, Becerra filed or joined more than 120 lawsuits against the Trump administration, covering immigration, environmental protection, civil rights, and healthcare. “We were able to defend California, its values and its people,” he said.

Keep ReadingShow less
​Voting booths in a high school.

During a recent visit to Indianapolis, VP JD Vance pressed Indiana Republicans to consider mid-decade redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Getty Images, mphillips007

JD Vance Presses Indiana GOP To Redraw Congressional Map

On October 10, Vice President JD Vance visited Indianapolis to meet with Republican lawmakers, urging them to consider redrawing Indiana’s congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The visit marked Vance’s third trip to the state in recent months, underscoring the Trump administration’s aggressive push to expand Republican control in Congress.

Vance’s meetings are part of a broader national strategy led by President Donald Trump to encourage GOP-led states to revise district boundaries mid-decade. States like Missouri and Texas have already passed new maps, while Indiana remains hesitant. Governor Mike Braun has met with Vance and other Republican leaders. Still, he has yet to commit to calling a special legislative session. Braun emphasized that any decision must ensure “fair representation for every Hoosier."

Keep ReadingShow less
A child looks into an empty fridge-freezer in a domestic kitchen.

The Trump administration’s suspension of the USDA’s Household Food Security Report halts decades of hunger data tracking.

Getty Images, Catherine Falls Commercial

Trump Gives Up the Fight Against Hunger

A Vanishing Measure of Hunger

Consider a hunger policy director at a state Department of Social Services studying food insecurity data across the state. For years, she has relied on the USDA’s annual Household Food Security Report to identify where hunger is rising, how many families are skipping meals, and how many children go to bed hungry. Those numbers help her target resources and advocate for stronger programs.

Now there is no new data. The survey has been “suspended for review,” officially to allow for a “methodological reassessment” and cost analysis. Critics say the timing and language suggest political motives. It is one of many federal data programs quietly dropped under a Trump executive order on so-called “nonessential statistics,” a phrase that almost parodies itself. Labeling hunger data “nonessential” is like turning off a fire alarm because it makes too much noise; it implies that acknowledging food insecurity is optional and reveals more about the administration’s priorities than reality.

Keep ReadingShow less
Standing Up for Democracy Requires Giving the Other Side Credit When It Is Deserved

U.S. President Donald Trump poses with the signed agreement at a world leaders' summit on ending the Gaza war on October 13, 2025 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

(Photo by Suzanne Plunkett - Pool / Getty Images)

Standing Up for Democracy Requires Giving the Other Side Credit When It Is Deserved

American political leaders have forgotten how to be gracious to their opponents when people on the other side do something for which they deserve credit. Our antagonisms have become so deep and bitter that we are reluctant to give an inch to our political adversaries.

This is not good for democracy.

Keep ReadingShow less