Colorado is on the verge of joining a group of states that are seeking to alter the Electoral College. Democratic Gov. Jared Polis said he would sign a bill into law that will award the state’s electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote. Polis described the current system of electing the president of the United States as a “relic,” and said that the person who gets the most votes should win the election (via The Hill):
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) will sign a measure to award his state’s electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, moving a countrywide coalition one step closer to circumventing the Electoral College.
In an interview Sunday, Polis called the Electoral College an “undemocratic relic” of the nation’s past, one he wants to see relegated to the dustbin of history.
“I’ve long supported electing the president by who gets the most votes,” Polis told The Hill. “It’s a way to move towards direct election of the president.”
Colorado will become the 12th state to join the national popular vote interstate compact. Those 12 states and the District of Columbia, which has also passed a popular-vote bill, account for 172 electoral votes, just under 98 shy of the 270 votes a presidential candidate needs to win the White House.
Earlier this month, we wrote about how Colorado was mulling this decision of joining the Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which is a legitimate subject of debate to hold, though I’m still a tad skeptical. Yes, it would permit candidates for both parties to run campaigns more attuned to their bases, as there’s no need to moderate of shift messaging to win swing states. The GOP can run on freedom. The Democrats can run unabashedly on the Green New Deal. I think we would win that election, but is the system broken? We’ve only had five elections in which the winner has won the Electoral College, but lost the popular vote. Trump is the fifth. That’s not necessarily a sign that the system is broken. Yet, this push is fueled mostly by the sour grapes anti-Trump contingent that still can’t believe Hillary Clinton lost.
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