With 10 percent of the votes left to be counted, Colorado voters seem to have passed a proposition on Tuesday to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Proposition 113 gained 52.2 percent of the vote as of Wednesday evening, Fox News reported.
The compact will force Colorado’s citizens to forfeit the state’s Electoral College delegates to the winner of the national popular vote, even if the states voters do not support that candidate.
Colorado became the 15th state to join the compact.
If enough states join the NPVIC so that their combined Electoral College votes equal at least 270, then the Electoral College would be effectively abolished.
“The national popular vote is a very straightforward concept,” Democratic state Sen. Michael Foote, who backed the initiative, told the newspaper.
“One person should always equal one vote, and the presidential candidate who gets the most votes should win the election,” he said.
The Constitution’s Framers envisioned the Electoral College as a safeguard against tyranny of large states and as a necessary check on democracy, a form of government that they viewed as dangerous if unchecked by republican institutions.
The Electoral College weights votes according to geography and the needs and interests of distant and diverse states, not simply the numerical democratic majority. This is consistent with America’s representative republican form of government.
If the compact succeeds in dismantling the Electoral College, then a few coastal cities—such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago—would decide all future elections with their overwhelming Democratic votes.
Amid widespread outrage over the last-minute rules changes implemented this year by blue-state officials—often without legislative approval—under the pretense of coronavirus emergency measures, yet another concern is that these left-leaning juggernauts may simply loosen their laws to disfranchise voters in states with more election-integrity safeguards.
Opponents of the Colorado bill said voters were manipulated, in the name of so-called democracy, into voting against their own interests.
“They were tricked by California billionaires, who spent millions of dollars to buy our votes for president,” former Republican state House Speaker Frank McNulty told the Denver Post. “Colorado’s votes should be decided by Coloradans.”
“This is going to reduce Colorado’s clout, and it’s going to reduce our influence on issues like transportation, water, health care and funding for our military bases,” he said.
