Thomas Paine’s Common Sense helped push American colonists to revolt against England and form the United States. He argued that a tiny English island shouldn’t rule over a large continent. Some Colorado politicians meddling with votes in 2019 have lost touch with that common sense of 1776.
The Colorado General Assembly recently passed Senate Bill 42 that requires Colorado electoral votes go to the winner of the National Popular Vote in a presidential election. Some Colorado politicians, such as Mesa County Commissioner Rose Pugliese and Monument Mayor Don Wilson are fighting against the measure. They’ve created a petition to bring the matter before voters in 2020. Former CMU Student Trustee, and current House District 54 Representative Matt Soper stands with them.
As students of Colorado Mesa University, we may wonder why we should care. After all, we’re just trying to get our degrees and earn a livable wage.
Or perhaps we’re in favor of SB 42. Maybe we really wanted Hillary Clinton to win in 2016 and we’re still upset she won the popular vote but lost the election. From that standpoint, it makes sense to change the way Colorado electoral votes get decided.
After all, doesn’t it make sense for the person with the most votes to win? Isn’t that the fair solution?
Here’s why we should care about SB 42, and why it isn’t a fair way to represent the American people:
The electoral college exists to protect the voices of people everywhere, regardless of where they may live. Distributing votes based on a state’s population allows the popular vote of the state to be considered. This allows everyone within the state to have equal voice.
Though it may be exposing fresh wounds, look at the 2016 presidential election for an example of fairness. It’s important to look at this from an objective point of view, not one ruled by how much we may dislike President Trump.
According to the Associated Press, Trump won the popular vote in 2,626 counties while Clinton won the popular vote in 487 counties. By distribution of counties, over 80 percent of the country voted for Trump.
Looking at it that way, allowing the popular vote to control electoral vote distribution is lets 18.5 percent of the country-by-area override everybody else.
A map breakdown of how counties voted shows that Clinton won the popular vote largely because of California and New York. Allowing California and New York to control the entire country is enough to make Paine turn in his grave. It’s just not common sense, and it’s certainly not fair.
It also sets a dangerous precedent to how Colorado dedicates its electoral votes. Right now it may seem appealing because so many of us don’t like Trump, and changing the rules to the game seems like the best way to beat him.
That’s great for now, but it’s short-sighted. What happens when the overwhelming majority of Coloradans vote for one candidate, but the popular vote goes the other way? All our votes become worthless and Colorado votes against the will of its own people.
Imagine that happening and seeing our own state vote for Trump when the majority of us voted for Clinton. How would we feel seeing our votes mean nothing?
Though we’re just trying to get our degrees, CMU students still should care about this. Most of us are from Colorado and many students from outside Colorado may stay here after graduation. That makes Colorado our home.
If we’re going to live and work here, doing our best to help Colorado thrive, we should also want Colorado to help us. None of us, regardless of party affiliation, should cherish the possibility of our state not representing our will.
It’s about having our voices matter. If Coloradans vote predominantly Democrat, Republican or for a flying spaghetti monster, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Colorado votes remain controlled by Colorado voters.
It’s our state. We should keep it that way.
Without statewide winner-take-all laws, under National Popular Vote, all votes would actually help the candidate each of us actually vote for.
In presidential elections, current state winner-take-all laws create the illusion that entire states voted 100% for the state’s winner, because the laws award 100% of each state’s electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most votes in the state. However, for example, in Connecticut, the actual vote was 898,000 votes for Clinton; 673,000 for Trump, 49,000 for Johnson, and 23,000 for Stein.
The price that a state pays for its winner-take-all law is that no presidential candidate has anything to gain or lose by soliciting voters or catering to voter issues in 38 states in the November general election. The Democratic candidates take blue states for granted, The Republican candidates take red states for granted. Every voter in safe states—Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green—ends up without any meaningful influence or voice in the presidential election.
If you add up all the runner-up votes and all the surplus votes cast for president, then about 60% of all votes cast for president under the current system do not matter at all.
Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter equally in the state counts and national count.
The vote of every voter in the country (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green) would help his or her preferred candidate win the Presidency. Every vote in the country would become as important as a vote in a battleground state such as New Hampshire or Florida. The National Popular Vote plan would give voice to every voter in the country, as opposed to treating voters for candidates who did not win a plurality in the state as if they did not exist.
The National Popular Vote bill would give a voice to the minority party voters for president in each state. Now they don’t matter to their candidate.
In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).
And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state, are wasted and don’t matter to presidential candidates.
Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 “wasted” votes for Bush in 2004.
Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 “wasted” votes for Bush in 2004 — larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes).
8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
Now, because of statewide winner-take-all laws, in some states, big city Democratic votes can outnumber all other people not voting Democratic in the state. All of a state’s votes may go to Democrats.
Without state winner-take-all laws, every conservative in a state that now predictably votes Democratic would count. Right now they count for 0
The current system completely ignores conservatives presidential voters in states that vote predictably Democratic.