Summit County registered voters should know that the Colorado Legislature and the Colorado governor have recently passed a law mandating that all of Colorado’s electoral votes in any U.S. presidential election be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote.
This means that Colorado voters no longer have a say in who our state elects as president. Our Legislature has abdicated our right as individuals to cast votes for Colorado presidential electors. Instead, the National Popular Vote law forces Colorado to join a likely unconstitutional compact of states in casting all our electoral votes for the winner of the national popular vote.
Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution says each state shall choose a number of presidential electors equal to the sum of their U.S. representatives and senators. Accordingly, Colorado has nine electors. Those electors are part of the Electoral College, as conceived by James Madison and approved by the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
The Electoral College is important to retain because it guarantees that rural states like Colorado have the same equal say in electing the president as populated states like California and New York. Without the Electoral College and with the National Popular Vote law, the president would simply be elected by the major urban cities like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.
If you think the National Popular Vote law is a bad idea, like I do, please call me at 970-389-4400 to sign the referendum petition, as authorized by the Colorado State Constitution, to put the law on the 2020 ballot subject to a vote of registered Colorado voters.
This is grassroots democracy allowing “We the People” to control the arbitrary abuse of power by our state legislature.