I think all Green and Libertarians should vote for this amendment. It would be cool on the day after the election to actually have a third party win at least one electoral vote.

ACP's should vote for it as well.


American
Constitution
Party

You guys do realize why we have electoral votes right?

It's an absolute STUPID idea...

The point of the electoral college is to require candidates to campaign in all states in order to win...

If you guys do that, you will never see another Presidential candidate in your state again...

P.S. I'm from Wisconsin, and I love the electoral college right now, as it is ('cuz we get GW in town every month or so, etc.)...

Yeah, but we can start a trend with the goal of eliminating the stupid electorial college and go with direct popular vote.

It's the way it should be. We have the technology, it can happen.

KAC

kennyc, you do realize that this country is a representative republic correct?  I'm curious why you think it is a good idea to go with a direct, popular vote?  I really don't think you have thought this through to its conclusion.  There is a reason why all the starch liberals in Denver were down in front of all the supermarkets collecting signatures for this.  They want the big population centers in our country to decide who will be president.  Colorado and other small states would mean absolutely nothing to the candidates.  The candidates would promise the states with the high poplulations anything they wanted at the expense of little states LIKE COLORADO.  Dave_A is exactly right.  Unless, of course you want California and New York to pick you president for you.

Here is a quote from Bill Owens "If that passes, Colorado will cease to be a factor in any presidential campaign in the future"  

From RockyMountainNews.com

You guys think electoral vote apportionment is a  good idea?  Maybe you're right, but ONLY IF it is instituted nationwide.

Why should Colorado DILUTE its power and stake in presidential politics if the San Fran Cisco Bay Area will still cause all 50+ of the Kalifornistan electoral votes to go to a democrat, despite the more conservative slant of the state as a whole.

As for those of you who wish to avoid use of the electoral college alltogether, give me a break.  That system, briliiantly conceived by the founders, is a paramount of states rights.  Its the reason that every presidential election in the country is NOT decided by five or six of the largest (socialist, liberal) cities in the country each year.

Let me put it to you this way:   Under a "pure popular" vote scenario, it would be possible -  even likely -- that there would be multiple elections where the "winning candidate" LOST in every state by a relatively close vote except for California, and New York, but that the populations of those states push tip the scale to have the candidate win nationwide.   That's just not right, and its not the way our republic was designed to function.  

I almost had a heart attack this morning.

In today's Asspain (Aspen) Daily News there is a ½ page op-ed on why the electoral college was founded and why it is still a good idea. Seemed the author was even a local guy (for Asspain) and not some syndicated hack.

oh yeah. He said Amendment 36 was a very bad idea.

I was amazed.

 

This article should address many of issues that are being discussed here. One big problem we have here in Colorado is the fact that it is very easy to get a referendum vote on the ballot.

Link


Split Colorado's electoral votes?
Voters to decide measure to allocate votes by presidential candidates' popular result


By Tom Curry
National affairs writer
MSNBC
Updated: 12:28 p.m. ET Sept. 27, 2004


DENVER, Colo. - Colorado will be the focal point on Election Day for one of the most intriguing proposed changes in American presidential politics since women were given the right to vote.

Facing Colorado voters on Nov. 2: a ballot measure to change the state constitution so that Colorado’s nine electoral votes would be allocated in proportion to the popular vote in the state instead of a winner-take-all basis. Colorado and 47 other states now use the winner-take-all method in presidential elections.

If approved by voters, Colorado’s measure could begin a state-by-state change in the electoral vote system, without proponents having to go to the trouble of attempting to amend the U.S. Constitution.

If George Bush got 52 percent of the popular vote in Colorado on Nov. 2, he’d be allocated five electoral votes instead of all nine.

If Democratic candidate John Kerry got 47 percent of the Colorado vote, he’d get four electoral votes, instead of none.


Were it to be approved by the voters and upheld by the courts, the ballot measure could boost Kerry, currently trailing in the latest Colorado poll at 39 percent.

But it could also conceivably cost Kerry the election, if he were locked in a close race and got only five of the state’s electoral votes.

Sue Casey, the state director for the Kerry campaign in Colorado, voiced exasperation with the measure: “I think it’s an esoteric, insider thing.”

She added, “I’m hoping that we win in Colorado and get nine electoral votes. There is no way you want to go all out and win a state — and then find out that you didn’t win the state.”

Colorado’s Republican Gov. Bill Owens is also critical of the measure and will be mobilizing opposition to it. Owens said the measure would make Colorado insignificant by diminishing the incentive for presidential candidates to pay attention to the state.

“For Colorado, for the next 100 years we would’t have the ability to compete for the federal dollars, for highways, for base closings,” he said.

Helping lead the charge for the measure, called Amendment 36, is Democratic consultant Rick Ridder, a veteran of the Howard Dean campaign.

Julie Brown, the campaign director of Make Your Vote Count, the Denver-based group pushing the measure, said the idea began in 2001, when a Democratic state legislator from Boulder, Ron Tupa, proposed a bill to allocate Colorado’s electoral votes as Maine and Nebraska do: the popular vote winner would get two electoral votes and the winner of the rest of the state’s electoral votes would be determined by who carried each congressional district.

Tupa’s bill died in the legislature, so activists turned to the idea of a ballot measure.

'Fairest possible way'
“The statewide popular vote is the fairest possible way to do it,” said Brown. “What this is really about is making everybody’s vote in the state count equally. When you send nine people to the Electoral College and at least four of them don’t represent the state, it’s not fair, it’s not democratic.”

She added, “Contrary to popular belief, this is a non-partisan issue. We have had nothing to do with the Democratic Party on this.” She also said, “We have had no discussions with the Kerry campaign.”

Denver pollster Floyd Ciruli found in a Sept. 14-Sept. 18 survey of 600 likely voters that 51 percent supported the proposal, while 31 percent opposed it and 18 percent were undecided.

“In my opinion, that means it’s in trouble,” Ciruli said. Why? “For the most part, at this point there is very little advertising up for these amendments yet. Early voting starts here about Oct. 10. That’s when the big ads start. If you look at every other ballot issue in the polls, they are at 60 percent support or better.”

Leading the opposition to the measure is veteran Republican consultant Katy Atkinson, who has run initiative efforts in the past, including one to defeat Election Day voter registration.

Atkinson agreed with Ciruli that based on past ballot measure history the proposal looks unlikely to be approved.

Assessing poll results
“The rule in initiative campaigns is that if they come in on the first poll with under 55 or 60 percent on the proponents’ side, they’re in big trouble. The first poll gives the voters their initial impression, before they’ve heard any arguments against it; that’s normally the peak. It’s very difficult to build support while the other side is shooting at you,” she said.

“It looks so grossly partisan; it is sponsored by a Democratic operation with one of the big Democratic consultants in town (Ridder) with out-of-state money,” Ciruli said. “The Republicans will be overwhelmingly against it.”

Even if it wins, the measure is certain to be challenged in the courts due to questions about its constitutionality.

Article II of the Constitution says “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.”

The Colorado ballot measure is being voted on by the people directly, not by the state legislature. But Denver attorney Mark Grueskin, who drafted the measure, said there are Supreme Court precedents supporting the idea of the people being the ultimate authority in such electoral law cases.

Much of the funding of the effort to pass the ballot measure has come from Jorge Klor de Alva, a California resident and a business executive who heads a firm called Apollo International, which is linked to Apollo Group, parent company of the University of Phoenix.

The founder of the Apollo group is Dr. John Sperling, who has been a major Democratic donor, giving thousands of dollars to candidates from John Kerry to Howard Dean.

Klor de Alva has contributed to the campaigns of two Democratic congressional candidates.

A national harbinger?
Given some Americans’ puzzlement with the electoral mechanics that allow one candidate to receive the most votes nationwide and not win the electoral vote, one might expect that Colorado could be the harbinger of a national movement if the measure is approved by the voters.

But Atkinson is skeptical: She said only 16 states allow ballot initiatives and state legislators in the other states would not be likely to undertake electoral vote-splitting on their own.

If what the proponents were most concerned about was starting a national trend, Atkinson said, “They could have made this take effect in 2008, instead of in this presidential election. Or they could also have put a trigger in that said it took effect in Colorado after a certain number of the states adopted. Colorado would have been on the leading edge, but would not put itself at a huge disadvantage.”

But Brown said what other states do will not affect her support for Colorado proposal. “If you told me that no other state was going to do this and Colorado was going to be the only state to do this, I would still be working just as hard to pass it.”

© 2004 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6106804/

36 would completely marginalize Colorado.

Anyone arguing for popular vote... is an idiot.  Sorry, but really you should have paid attention in middle school civics class.

-z

Quoted: 36 would completely marginalize Colorado. Anyone arguing for popular vote... is an idiot.  Sorry, but really you should have paid attention in middle school civics class. -z

Ditto...

On the bright side, if it passes and Kerry carries Colorado, four EV would go to Bush.

On the really bright side, no more presidential canidates would visit and we wouldn't have as many political ads.

(J/K, I will vote against it.)

I would only vote for it if all the states were going to do the same thing. It would make Colorado a laughing stock when it came to voting. What would be the incentive other than to do your civic duty.

Quoted: I would only vote for it if all the states were going to do the same thing. It would make Colorado a laughing stock when it came to voting. What would be the incentive other than to do your civic duty.

We'd be irrelevant anyway, so why not vote Libertarian?

I likely WILL vote libertarian. and if 36 passes we might even get one electorial college vote for the libertarian party. In reality the Libertarians are no more radical than the Republicans or the Democrats, unfortunately the political system and laws continue to restrict the U.S. to a two-party system.

Amendment 36 and voting Libertarian could be a step towards a viable third party. And yes abolition of the electorial college would move us towards a democracy instead of a republic and that is not good, but we need some way to get viable third parties into the system and get the same-ol same-ol political crap out of the works.

KAC

Here's a couple of links relevant to this discussion.

http://www.fairvote.org/e_college/

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/take...1097926995&sign[partnerID]=1&sign[memberID]=337621833&sign[partner_userID]=337621833

http://www.snet.net/features/survey.../12040101.shtml

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1237571/posts

KAC