Article Published: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 editorial Electoral vote split bad idea for Colorado
If voters approve a ballot initiative and parcel out our nine votes in November, the state is certain to become politically irrelevant. Reform must be nationwide.
If you thought Colorado was political flyover territory now, imagine what would happen if the state splits up its nine electoral votes.
A proposed initiative for Colorado to abandon the winner-take-all Electoral College system would render Colorado politically irrelevant. The proposal, bankrolled by a wealthy Brazilian, is akin to unilateral disarmament.
Presidential candidates would spend little, if any, time here and would brush off our concerns and issues knowing only a few electoral votes were at stake.
The proposed initiative, which still must gain sufficient signatures to get on the ballot, would go into effect immediately if approved by voters in November. It would divvy up Colorado's share of the Electoral College based on the percentage of votes each candidate receives.
If the concept had been applied in 2000, Al Gore would be president of the United States. President Bush received 51 percent of the vote in Colorado, meaning he would have received only four of Colorado's then-eight electoral votes.
Bush received a total of 271 Electoral College votes, just one more than needed to be elected. Take away four of his Colorado votes and Gore is president.
However, had the system been in place in California, where Bush collected 42 percent of the vote, the overall Electoral College race would not even have been close. He would have claimed 23 of that state's electoral voters, sending him way over the top.
And that's precisely why this system doesn't work, despite proponents' insistence that it pushes us closer to a "one man, one vote" system.
Reformation of the Electoral College system can't be done piecemeal, on a state-by-state basis. If Americans want change in how the Electoral College works, it needs to be done on a nationwide basis.
If the actual proposal wasn't so laughable, we'd also oppose it on the mere premise that an outside group - The People's Choice for President - is using Colorado as a political laboratory.
The group, largely funded by J. Jorge Klor de Alva, a Brazilian with American citizenship, chose Colorado because it's easy to petition onto the ballot.
Coloradans should shun the idea of being used as political lab rats and keep Colorado's nine Electoral College votes intact.
Rosen: Electoral College prank
May 28, 2004
A petition drive is afoot in Colorado to change the way we cast our votes for president in the Electoral College. It smells suspiciously like a Democrat Trojan horse to elect John Kerry in 2004 and undermine our state's influence in future presidential elections.
This electoral reform initiative might have a seductive appeal to some naive citizens who wonder how it's possible, in a democracy like ours, for a presidential candidate who gets the most popular votes to lose?
But that question contains two fundamental fallacies.
First, this is not a democracy and never has been; it's a constitutional republic. The word democracy is nowhere to be found in the Constitution, Bill of Rights or Declaration of Independence. Our Founding Fathers took great pains to avoid the tyranny of the majority that accompanies an unrestrained democracy. They crafted a representative government, separating power among three distinct branches to filter the impulsive passions of the populace. The Electoral College reinforces the principle that our nation isn't a collective, amorphous blob but a confederation of individual states, each retaining some sovereign powers and certain unique values and preferences. Electoral votes for president were allocated among the states in such a way as to protect the influence of the smaller states from being overwhelmed by the more populous ones.
Second, we do not have a national election for president. We have 51 separate elections, one in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Yes, we tally the overall popular vote, but that's just for curiosity's sake; it has no legal bearing on the election. It was the individual states themselves that decided to cast their electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis. Forty-eight of them, including Colorado, continue to do so. Only two states, Nebraska and Maine, allow for a split vote.
The proposed electoral reform initiative would make Colorado the third, but with a difference. In Nebraska and Maine, a candidate gets one electoral vote for each congressional district carried and two more for winning the statewide vote. Under that formula, Al Gore would have gotten two of Colorado's electoral votes in 2000, instead of none.
This initiative is more ambitious. It would award Colorado's electoral votes proportionally as a percentage of the statewide popular vote.
That way Kerry, even if George W. Bush carried the state and five of our seven congressional districts, could still get four of our nine electoral votes. If all the states did it that way, the Electoral College would become a pointless formality. It would be tantamount to a national popular election, which is what the Democrats prefer since they control the major population centers. But all the states aren't doing it that way. For Colorado to go it alone would be folly. Given our relatively small population, it would render us irrelevant in presidential elections. Candidates wouldn't bother courting the state for a differential that amounted to a handful of votes.
The Colorado initiative has been bankrolled, to the tune of $150,000, by something called The People's Choice for President, formed in San Francisco. This is another of these stealth groups that seek to fly under the public radar. I've tried in vain to contact their headquarters. They claim to be nonpartisan. Color me suspicious. I know of no Republican leader in Colorado who supports this. The People's Choice for President's campaign adviser, Rick Rudder, is a Democratic activist who's worked for Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Ralph Nader, Gary Hart, Al Gore, Bill Clinton and Howard Dean. Why are these out-of-staters targeting Colorado? Perhaps because we're one of the two easiest states in the country for ballot initiatives. It's interesting to note that the other most initiative-friendly state is California. You'd think this San Francisco group would start in its own back yard. But it hasn't.
There's no such proposal in California this year. Why? Could it be because California is solidly in the Democratic fold and that Kerry figures to get all 55 of its electoral votes? In 2000, Bush got 42 percent of the popular vote in California. If he matched that in 2004, and if such a ballot initiative were successful, Kerry would get only 32 electoral votes and Bush would get 23. Hmmm.
Mike Rosen's radio show airs daily from 9 a.m. to noon on 850 KOA.