YES ON PROP 113

Elect presidents with popular vote

It is in America’s best interests to walk away from the antiquated electoral college system and elect the future presidents of this great country using the outcome of the national vote tally.

To do so does not require a change in the U.S. Constitution, because the founders of this nation empowered states to decide how they would allocate their electoral votes.

The General Assembly in 2019 voted to opt Colorado into a compact with 15 other states who have already agreed to give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The compact will not take effect until the states that have joined equal 270 electoral votes, or enough to guarantee future presidents would be elected by the compact. Currently, an additional 74 electoral votes are needed.

Concerned by the new law joining the compact, Mesa County Commissioner Rose Pugliese and Monument Mayor Don Wilson began a signature-gathering campaign (one specifically provided for in the Colorado Constitution to challenge new laws using direct democracy) to give the final say on the compact to voters. The irony of utilizing direct democracy to challenge a law supporting more-direct democracy is not lost on us, but we thank Pugliese and Wilson for bringing this issue to voters — it is a major change to a fundamental right and we are glad Coloradans will have the final say. Lawmakers must honor the decision.

However, we urge voters to vote yes on Proposition 113, and help this nation get to a popularly elected president.

The winner-takes-all electoral college system adopted by all but two states gives some votes more weight while stripping other votes of all their power. For example, in Colorado in 2016,

1.2 million people voted for President Donald Trump, but all nine of Colorado’s electoral votes went Hillary Clinton who earned 1.3 million votes.

The system also awarded less weight to the 1.3 million Colorado voters who supported Clinton than to the 174,419 voters in Wyoming who supported Trump. Each of the three electoral votes Trump won in Wyoming represented 58,000 votes, while in Colorado each electoral vote won by Clinton represented about 162,000 votes.

Our votes for president – an increasingly powerful position — are being diluted or erased in a way that occurs for no other elected official in this nation. This is a matter of preserving the sanctity of our votes across the nation. We can no longer allow millions of voters to feel their vote for president is futile because they are in the minority in their state. Republicans in California and Democrats in Texas should have their counts vote as much as the votes of their political counterparts.

Sen. Mike Foote, who sponsored the National Popular Vote Compact bill in Colorado, argues that candidates are ignoring four out of five states in favor of those battleground states like Michigan where swaying a few thousand voters can be the difference between zero electoral votes and 16 electoral votes.

Colorado once enjoyed the outsized attention that came with battleground status, but it seems unlikely that presidential candidates will visit as frequently as they did in 2016. Foote says that favoritism toward these swing states continues once the president is in office with tax breaks, favorable tariffs and even favorable treatment during times of distress. The president should pay attention to the whole country and not just a handful of battleground states.

We are concerned that the national popular vote could just transfer that power over candidates to the dense urban cities. However, Saul Anuzis, a Republican from Michigan who ran to be chair of the Republican National Committee, argues that the 100 largest cities in America account for 18% of the population and 15% of the vote. In other words, a candidate couldn’t ignore rural or suburban America and still be elected.

We are hopeful it will have a moderating effect on our nation’s top office as most Americans don’t share extremist views. The good news is if this experiment doesn’t work, Colorado voters or lawmakers can withdraw from the compact and if other states follow it will return America to the electoral college system.

Members of The Denver Post’s editorial board are Megan Schrader, editor of the editorial pages; Lee Ann Colacioppo, editor; Justin Mock, CFO; Bill Reynolds, general manager/ senior vp circulation and production; Bob Kinney, vice president of information technology; and TJ Hutchinson, systems editor.