A group that opposes Colorado’s wolf reintroduction efforts is now arguing that Proposition 114, the ballot initiative that established the state’s wolf reintroduction program, didn’t actually pass among voters in 2020. The group, Colorado Conservation Alliance, is asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — which is already reviewing the reintroduction program — to reconsider the implementation agreement it has with Colorado Parks and Wildlife while these claims are reviewed.
“Proposition 114 — the validation behind Colorado’s entire wolf program — did in not [sic] pass with a 1.8% margin — it failed!” Michael Clark, the Chairman of Colorado Conservation Alliance, wrote in a federal filing addressed to USFWS Director Brian Nesvik on June 5. “The result of Prop 114 was a 5.7% margin in favor of the NO vote.”
These allegations directly contradict the certified election results from the Secretary of State showing that Prop 114 passed by a narrow margin of 56,986 votes in 2020. The claims are based on a report that was commissioned by CCA and the Colorado Independent CattleGrowers Association, and which was put together by Seth Keshel, a former Army captain who does not accept the 2020 presidential election results and who makes his calculations based on what he says is widespread voter fraud.
Keshel concludes in his report that based on his “comprehensive statistical review” of the vote, the 2020 election was rigged at the state level in favor of presidential candidate Joe Biden, which in turn supposedly affected measures down the ballot — like Prop 114. He contends that “if not for this blue state’s election manipulation,” Prop 114 would have failed by a margin of more than 5 percent.
Keshel’s conclusions center around his claim that there were 264,389 fraudulent ballots cast for Biden in Colorado in 2020. This figure appears to be based on his own forecasting methodology, which relied in part on voter registration data and mirrored election results from other states. Keshel couches this by maintaining that “Joe Biden’s victory in Colorado is not in question.” He says the certified margin by which Biden won the state, however, is “ludicrously high.” No state officials appear to have addressed his claims.
“It is a certainty that the Prop 114 ‘No’ campaign would have won a comfortable victory without the top of the ticket election manipulation present,” Keshel concludes (emphasis added by Keshel). “Unfortunately, the fraudulent votes for Biden pushed the final margin to such insurmountable heights it dragged the ‘Yes’ movement with it.”
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In the letter he sent to USFWS Director Brian Nesvik on June 5, Clark urges federal officials to review and verify Keshel’s 2020 election report undercutting the message that Colorado’s wolf reintroduction program is “the will of the people.”
Clark’s letter comes at a time when Colorado’s wolf program is already under the federal microscope. In October 2025, Nesvik wrote to Colorado Parks and Wildlife stating it was violating its agreement (known as a Memorandum of Understanding) with the federal agency allowing CPW to facilitate the reintroduction program. And in January, Nesvik threatened to terminate the program unless CPW could provide a detailed report of how the agency has managed gray wolves under that 10(j) agreement.
On April 6 the USFWS published an official notice in the federal register requesting information regarding the implementation of Colorado’s wolf reintroduction program. According to that federal notice, all public comments were due by June 5.
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