The effort to repeal a new law aimed at giving Colorado's presidential electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote is underway.
Organizers said thousands of people signed petitions at events across the state for a ballot proposal to repeal Colorado's participation with 11 other states and the District of Columbia in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The repeal campaign gathered more than 1,100 signatures in Mesa County alone. Organizers wouldn’t give more specific numbers about how many signatures they’ve collected.
Gov. Jared Polis signed the National Popular Vote bill on March 15. It pledges Colorado’s nine electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, along with those 11 other states, but the pact would only take effect after states with a total collective 270 electoral votes join — enough to win the presidency.
The main concern for those against the new law is that the winner of the popular vote may not match up with the winner of Colorado’s majority of voters. They don’t believe Colorado’s votes should go to the winner who won in states like California, New York, Florida and Illinois. Outside of the election of President Donald Trump, if the compact was in effect for the last 10 elections, Colorado's electoral votes would have changed twice.
It’s a bipartisan effort, said Mesa County Commissioner Rose Pugliese, one of the repeal organizers.
“For an issue as important as our vote, it’s not really up to the legislature or even the governor to decide how our votes are allocated for president,” she said. “It’s up to the people.”
Pugliese is confident Colorado voters will get to vote on the issue in 2020. Pugliese said about 125,000 valid signatures are needed to put the question on the 2020 ballot but the goal is to submit 200,000 by the Aug. 1 deadline.
The campaign is coming to Denver Monday night.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
