Yes on Prop 113
Imagine this: Two candidates are campaigning to be Colorado’s next governor, but in order to win, one of the candidates must secure the majority vote in at least 33 of Colorado’s 64 counties. One candidate wins one million votes, but only wins 20 counties. The other candidate earns only half a million votes, but gets the most votes in the other 44 of our smaller counties. Despite getting only one-third of the total votes statewide, that second placed candidate becomes our next governor.
We would be outraged by this situation. Shouldn’t the candidate who secures the most votes win the election? That’s the way it works for every race here in Colorado. But it’s not the way it works in our presidential elections. Right now, the candidate that wins the most Electoral College votes wins the office of the presidency, not the person who gets the most Americans to vote for them.
Luckily, we can change that. Proposition 113, the National Popular Vote, would make sure the candidate that wins the most popular votes throughout the country actually wins the election.
By voting yes on Proposition 113, voters like you and me will be at the forefront of reforming our democracy and making sure it works for all Americans. Colorado is one of 15 states and the District of Columbia that has already signed on to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact so far.
If you believe that the person with the most votes should win, you should support Proposition 113. If we don’t fix the current system, what happened in 2000 and 2016 will keep happening — and that means that nothing less than our democracy is at stake.
Robert Schwartz/Boulder
