Colorado And The Electoral Vote

Wouldn't this kind of go against the whole idea behind electoral votes?




Vote against Amendment 36
State's influence at risk

September 18, 2004

We first spotted the electoral college initiative in May and nothing since has changed our mind that it's a piece of political mischief. We panned it then and urge a vote against it Nov. 2.

Amendment 36 would require the state to allocate its nine electoral votes in proportion to the statewide popular vote instead of giving all of them to the winner. If it passes, Colorado would be the first state in the nation to have such a system. Forty-eight states are now winner-take-all, and two - Maine and Nebraska - allocate electoral votes to the winners of each congressional district, with the two extra ones going to the statewide winner. In practice, neither state has ever divided its votes.

The initiative is a transparent ploy by Democracts to try to salvage a few more electoral votes for Sen. John Kerry in this year's election. After all, if it had been in effect in 2000, the difference in Colorado's allocation would have made Al Gore president.

Oddly enough, the initiative is being financed primarily by a Californian. If he were truly interested in using Colorado as a laboratory for a new political philosophy he wouldn't have had the amendment "apply retroactively" to the current election. He would have had it apply to future actions only, like other laws and constitutional amendments.

Although we have yet to meet a Republican who favors the plan, we have run into Democrats who oppose it. One of them is former Denver City Councilwoman Susan Barnes-Gelt, who has even taken on one of the initiative's prime backers, Sen. Ron Tupa of Boulder, in a televised debate.

"It's one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard of," she said. "I'm definitely against it."

Democrats are well aware that if Kerry suddenly took the lead in Colorado, the initiative would end up hurting him instead of Bush. That's why promotion of the initiative will likely come to a halt if the polls change.

The best objection to the proposal is that it would minimize Colorado's influence in presidential elections. Nine votes are worth pursuing. But why would a candidate spend much effort here if the best he or she could hope for is to turn a 4-5 margin into 5-4 margin?

There's also the danger that a change in Colorado could spur similar moves elsewhere. Some say proportional electoral college voting might be a worthwhile change if the entire nation adopted the system at once through an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But there's a huge downside. As historians have noted, if voting had been proportional nationwide in several recent elections, third-party candidates would have effectively thrown them into the U.S. House by keeping either of the major candidates from getting the necessary majority in the electoral college.

If you favor making every person's vote count more, that's the worst thing you could do. After all, when the House votes for president, each state - large or small - gets only one vote! Think about the backroom deals and the fights in the congressional delegations that are evenly divided between the major parties.

You don't want an election settled in the House. It would make the Supreme Court look like a paragon of populism. Nip proportional voting in the bud. Vote "no" on Amendment 36.

Source