National Popular Vote Referendum Makes 2020 Ballot in Colorado

The Elections Division at the Colorado Secretary of State’s office announced today, August 29, 2019, that the Senate Bill 19-042 National Popular Vote Referendum has qualified for the 2020 Colorado General Election ballot.

Basically, the bill concerns the adoption of an agreement among the States to elect the President of the United States by National Popular Vote instead of using the Electoral College. The College is made up of 538 people, chosen by each of the states and the District of Columbia, that are responsible for electing the President and Vice President of the United States.  When you vote for a candidate/political party, you are actually voting for the electors in each state that were selected to represent that ticket in the Electoral College.  Colorado has nine designated electors and each presidential elector must vote for the presidential and vice presidential candidates who received the highest number of votes in Colorado’s General Election.  Colorado has nine representatives because it has two members of the U.S. Senate and seven members of the U.S. House of Representatives.  The Bill proposes to have the nine delegates cast their votes for the winner of the national pouplar vote.

On August 1, 2019, the proponents submitted 228,832 signatures. After reviewing a 5% sample of the submitted signatures, the projected number of valid signatures is greater than 110% of the total number required. Referendum proponents are required to gather signatures equal to 5% of the total votes cast in the previous Secretary of State General Election contest, which is 124,632.