In the post-WWII era, the electricity sector in the United States enjoyed decades of relatively uncontested politics. So long as customers received reliable current at reasonable rates, they were content to allow the industry to persist partitioned off from public contestation in sector-specific, expert-staffed regulatory systems. But as climate change, grid resiliency, market alterations, and technological developments approach the electric sector, publics are increasingly confronting electricity providers and distributors. Many scholars interpret these calls via the term “energy democracy” and subsequently have crafted myriad frameworks with which to analyze energy democracy and its implications. This thesis takes up energy democracy in the context of three case studies—in Pueblo, Colorado, north central New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado—that involve communities agitating around electricity issues. Relying on qualitative interviews as well as gray literatures such as newspaper and government documents, this thesis calls for energy democracy to embrace contestation as a transcending theme to the varied frameworks. If energy democracy binds itself to a co-constitution of political and technical change, then it must commit to the end of depoliticized electricity and the opening of the sector to community contestation.