Proposed amendment to state constitution to popular vote

[JohnLocke]

Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution says that:
"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress."
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In other words, a state may choose its electors any way it wants to. Most states hold an election and the candidate with the most votes gets all the electors. In Maine and Nebraska, the winner of each congressional district gets one elector and the winner of the state as a whole gets two more. But the state legislature is free to just skip the election altogether to save the taxpayers money and just appoint the electors directly. The Colorado state legislature did precisely this in the bitterly contested election of 1876, in which the Democrat, Samuel Tilden won the popular vote over the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. (...)

With this rather lengthy introduction, we get to today's news. A group of Colorado citizens have proposed a change to the state's constitution specifying that Colorado's nine electors be apportioned strictly in proportion to the popular vote. Currently Bush is ahead 48% to 43% there, so under the proposed system, Bush would get five electoral votes and Kerry four electoral votes, instead of nine to zero. The group has turned in petitions containing 130,000 signatures. If about 68,000 of these prove to be valid, the question will be a ballot referendum in November. If it passes, the change takes effect for this year's election. If it makes the ballot, on the evening of Nov. 2, the TV news anchors will probably be saying: "President Bush won Colorado with 55% of the vote, but we don't know how many votes he will get in the electoral college until they finish recounting the closely fought referendum on changing the Colorado state constitution." Whoever loses will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which once again may have to rule on the sensitive issue of state's rights.
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http://www.electoral-vote.com/aug/aug01.html
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/election/article/0,1299,DRMN_36_3077685,00.html

[El Supremo]

1. Good reasons not to vote for it, but a better one will be...

Kerry wins Colorado 51% to Bush 49%, but because of the way Colorado apportions its electoral votes, Bush gets 4 to Kerry's 5. And Kerry looses the national election by 3 votes total.

[eleny]

2. Jeez, I signed it!

Besdies Clinton, when have we gone blue? Yipes!

[Robb]

3. Anyone have a website for Make Your Vote Count?

:shrug: I've had no luck... they must have an online presence?