text: Majority vote should rule – The Denver Post
  Majority vote should rule
  April 20, 2006 at 1:35 pm
  We can make the election for the most powerful office in the world more democratic. We can count every person's vote equally. We can elect the president of the United States by a revolutionary process called "democracy." I think we should.
  Currently the president is elected in 51 (don't forget the District of Columbia) separate, winner-take-all votes for presidential electors. Electors are not allocated by population. Small states get a disproportionate number because they get one for each senator and representative. A resident of Wyoming has 2.78 times as much presidential electoral clout as a resident of California.
  This creates the possibility that the winner of the popular vote won't be elected president, and three times in history our system has elected a president who has gotten the smaller number of popular votes.
  This dysfunction is non-partisan. Although it favored a Republican in 2000, if John Kerry had gotten 60,000 additional votes in Ohio in 2004, he would have been president, even though George Bush received 2.8 million more votes.
  Senate Bill 223, now pending in the Colorado legislature, is Colorado's part of a bipartisan national proposal that would elect the popular-vote winner president. The legislation would join Colorado in a compact of states that would agree to instruct their electors to vote for the national popular vote winner. The compact would become effective only after states totaling 270 electoral votes – a majority – join. The proposal does not require a constitutional amendment, because states already can decide how to instruct their presidential electors.
  This proposal represents a move toward democracy. Many people are frightened by change, especially one that alters a process that has been in place for more than 200 years.
  The founding fathers did not oppose change, however. They knew that what made sense for a fledgling nation with little experience in self-government might require amendment as the nation grew.
  As the country has grown and changed, we have amended some of their work. We now allow African- Americans, women and non-property owners to vote. Senators, who once were picked by state legislatures, are now elected by the people.
  The current system distorts the election conversation towards extremely parochial interests. In 2004 Bush and Kerry spent 74 percent of their time and money in only five states: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Iowa. Although they may not be the most important issues nationwide, the economic embargo of Cuba and ethanol subsidies become huge presidential issues. If every vote counted equally, the presidential campaigns would address the concerns of the mainstream.
  If we elected the governor of Colorado in the same way that we elect the president, with 64 county winner-take-all elections, the campaigns would spend no time, money or effort in predictably Republican or Democratic counties such as El Paso, Douglas, Boulder or Denver.
  Jefferson County, though, is a swing county. If a local issue such as the development of a Wal-Mart in Arvada was momentarily hot, you would hear the gubernatorial candidates taking passionate positions on this issue. Everyone in Jefferson County would get 10 robo calls from the candidates trying to outdo the other in their opposition, or support, for Wal- Mart. Issues that affect the majority of Coloradans would be neglected.
  Colorado has joined compacts of states regarding water, driver's licenses, wildlife and many other issues. Colorado should join one to elect the president in a more democratic manner as well.
  In 1787 there was no way to conduct a national political campaign. The idea behind the Electoral College was that electors would be smart, knowledgeable people who would pick a good man to be president. Now almost no one knows who the presidential electors are. We focus on the presidential tickets when we vote, and the Electoral College is an anomaly. I think that if Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin and the other founding fathers were around now, they would support a woman's vote. They would oppose slavery, and they would favor the election of the president by a majority vote.