Colorado should reject Senate Bill 19-042, which would require Colorado’s Electoral College votes to be cast in favor of the national popular vote winner.

For most elections, the popular vote winner in Colorado has been the same as the national popular vote winner. However, with that being said, in the last eight presidential elections there has been no case where Colorado’s net vote would have changed the winner of the popular vote in a presidential election. Colorado’s popular vote totals, when considered on a national popular vote scale, are already functionally meaningless. The only way Colorado voters have a functional, constitutional means of making a difference has been through the power of our vote in the Electoral College.

If this bill passes, Colorado voters might as well not bother voting for any presidential candidate at all. Already, Colorado’s popular vote doesn’t affect the winner of the national popular vote. Why surrender what little influence we have on a national scale to the voters in the nine most populous states (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia and North Carolina) where half of the population of the United States lives? Colorado would be rendered completely irrelevant in presidential politics.

Urge your state representatives not to take this foolish step. This bill will have the practical result of disenfranchising every Colorado voter in future presidential elections. It really will become a case where our individual votes in presidential elections won’t matter.

Dan Jones

Greeley