No More Electoral Injustice! For more lines

In the past 20 years we have had two presidents who were not elected by a majority of Americans -- George W Bush and Donald J Trump. Both have been disasters for the American people, although in different ways.

Would the trajectory of our country today be significantly altered had Al Gore and Hillary Clinton become occupants of the Oval Office instead? The answer is yes. Al Gore likely would have begun efforts to address climate change in 2001 -- we already would have had almost a 20-year start on saving our planet. And Hillary? Well, we would not have to continue efforts to save our healthcare. Back in the 1990's, Hillary tried to work on improving healthcare access as First Lady. As President as of January 2017, Hillary would have had the past couple years to pass the legislation needed to give the American people Universal Health Care access for an affordable price. (Plus we would not have to think of the terrible humanitarian crisis of immigrant children locked in cages.)

Do we have any way to fix this? Again, the answer is YES. We can work to have the National Popular Vote ("NPV").

The following is an article covering the Estes Valley LWV meeting about NPV!

---

Democrats Hosting Senator Mike Foote

In Estes Park on November 17

Estes Valley LWV is hosting a presentation on the National Popular Vote ("NPV") State Compact on Sunday, November 17, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., at the Library’s Hondius Room. Our speaker is Senator Mike Foote, Colorado Senator for District 17 (representing eastern Boulder County). Senator Foote was the NPV bill sponsor in the Colorado State Senate.

The Colorado Legislature voted in early 2019 to join the NPV State Compact, and such legislation was signed by Governor Polis in March. This issue will appear as a Referendum on our 2020 state ballot. So it is important that Colorado voters understand how NPV works.

The purpose behind NPV is to make sure that every vote counts in every U.S. presidential election. The NPV Compact does not get rid of the electoral college, rather it works by states participating in the Compact awarding their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner in the presidential election.

To make this work, NPV becomes effective when it has been adopted by states representing 270 electoral votes -- the threshold needed to win the U.S. presidency. Currently (including Colorado) states representing 196 electoral votes have joined the NPV Compact.

This idea for changing the electoral college has been around for some time – especially as 5 presidents in our history lost the country's popular vote, but managed to squeak out the electoral vote. Two of these cases occurred in the last 20 years alone, specifically, in the 2000 election between Bush and Gore, and in the 2016 election betw

een Trump and Clinton. These 2 examples in the last 20 years demonstrate how your vote for the majority candidate may not count due to the inequities of the electoral college.

The electoral college was selected in 1787, representing a compromise by our country's founding fathers at their Constitutional Convention. The popular vote was not adopted then only because the country in 1787 was considered too spread out and the flow of information too slow to inform all its potential voters about their presidential candidate choices. A good description of the alternatives they considered can be found at: https://www.coloradonpv.org/npvic

Now with television, the internet, and all other related communications platforms, lack of communications is no longer the issue. The NPV State Compact allows us to reconsider how we make sure that everyone’s vote for president is counted every time.

Please join us on the 17th to hear this interesting and timely topic.