How Colorado’s votes for president should be counted
Re: “Dems are attempting to subvert the Electoral College,” Feb. 23 news story
Conservatives are livid about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. They claim that when we Coloradans vote, our vote won’t matter; it won’t count. Sen. Cory Gardner raises a long list of non-issues in arguing against the compact.
Well, think back to the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a substantial margin. She also won Colorado’s electoral votes. But she is not our president.
So just how much did the vote of individual Coloradans count in 2016? Nada! Zip! Zero! In fact, our votes had no bearing whatsoever on the outcome. All of us were disenfranchised. Insofar as the presidential contest was concerned, we might just as well have not bothered to vote.
On the other hand, with the compact in effect, every vote in every state would truly matter.
Paul Weis, Loveland
Welcome to throwing away Colorado’s electoral votes! Why should we be counted? Let the nine (and possibly more) other states’ votes determine how our votes go for president.
This is what Senate Bill 42 would do, which was passed by both houses of our legislature and awaits signature by the governor.
This issue had practically no advance warning for public discussion. Its propulsion is either ignorant or malicious. The large urban centers would as a “popular vote” control the presidential election, contrary to the Constitutional provision for the Electoral College.
We must remember that the vast swaths of our country are less populated, but they serve a very vital purpose in that they are the stewards, maintainers and protectors of our vast land and deserve a say-so in governance. Colorado is one of these.
Barbara St. John, Wheat Ridge
Gerrymandering: a practice intended to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating geographical voting boundaries. Two principal tactics are used in: “cracking” (diluting the voting power of the opposing party’s supporters across many districts) and “packing” (concentrating the opposing party’s voting power in one district to reduce their voting power in other districts).
The Electoral College is simply gerrymandering on a national scale to dilute one party’s voting value compared to another. If I merely move from Centennial, to Laramie but retain my ideology, occupation and principles, my presidential voting impact is worth three times more. It no longer relates to the founding fathers original intention to convince 13 colonies to accept a federal government or a recently fabricated desire to hear the “voices of the minority.”
Norman Davey, Centennial
The Electoral College made sense in the election of 1788. People regarded themselves as citizens of a state; the idea of United States citizenship was new. Further, voters outside of cities had little information about candidates, so the Constitution’s writers invented the College, whereby voters would select trusted representatives, who would then decide who should be president. Today, electors don’t decide: they vote the way the states’ majority, no matter how small, voted.
Sen. Gardner and others have made much of the idea that Colorado voters will lose their voice. Thatap wrong. Voters in strong majority states have no voice. Even in purple Colorado, a tiny majority can control our electoral vote. Under the proposed agreement, the president will be elected by all the voters in the U.S., not by a few voters in a few states. Whether I vote with the state’s majority or not, my vote will count the same. People, not states, will elect the president.
Don Bishop, Golden
