Repeal appears headed to ballot

Opponents of state’s new national popular vote law say they have 185K signatures

Voters likely will decide how Colorado picks a president in addition to which candidate they want for the job when they fill out their ballots in November 2020.

That’s because a group called Coloradans Vote say they have more than enough signatures to put a question before voters about repealing a law that would change how the state awards its nine Electoral College votes.

“We had 185,000 signatures as of last week and packets are coming in droves every day,” said Rose Pugliese, a Mesa County commissioner and organizer for Coloradans Vote. “We’re definitely on track to break the record” for most signatures ever submitted.

To qualify for the ballot, Coloradans Vote needs to submit 124,632 valid signatures from registered voters to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office by Aug 1.

If they’re successful, voters will decide whether the state should stay in something called the national popular vote interstate compact. Democrats added Colorado to the agreement during the 2019 session when they passed a law binding the state’s Electoral College votes to whichever presidential candidate won the national popular vote even if that person lost Colorado.

“I believe that an excellent way to tweak the system is to elect the president of the United States in a way in which every vote counts equally, and that’s not what’s happening in the current system,” said Democratic state Rep. Emily Sirota, who sponsored the national popular vote bill.

Both Siriota and her Senate cosponsor, Sen. Mike Foote, DLafayette, said they’re eager to explain this change to voters against the backdrop of a presidential election.

“A handful of states are going to matter in 2020, and Colorado isn’t one of them,” Foote said. “The presidential candidates aren’t going to care what Colorado voters think. National popular vote would change that.”

But not everyone shares their sentiments.

Pugliese said the reason people want to repeal this law is because it cedes Colorado’s voice to the bigger states such as New York, which has four times as many residents, and sprawling metro areas such as Los Angeles County, which is home to twice as many people.

“What I think is so interesting about this issue is it really has been a nonpartisan effort. We’ve had Democratic volunteers and unaffiliated volunteers,” Pugliese said. “Most people want Coloradans to make the decision about where their votes will go.”

Her group has more than 2,200