Colorado and New York
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
On Election Day, voters in Colorado will consider the Colorado Electoral College Reform Initiative, which would change the way Colorado apportions its electoral votes. If the measure is approved, the state would abandon the winner-take-all system in favor of dividing up the electors according to each candidate’s percentage of the popular vote in the state.
The change, which would apply to the 2004 election, is meant to help Senator Kerry, who is expected to lose in Colorado, take the White House. Instead of all nine Colorado electoral votes going to President Bush, three or four would probably go to Mr. Kerry. If Colorado had this proportional system in 2000, Vice President Gore may well have won the election.
The proposed amendment to the Colorado Constitution has been billed as an attempt to make more votes count in the election. The effect in the future, though, would be to make Colorado voters less relevant in presidential contests. By diminishing the payoff of winning Colorado – and essentially guaranteeing each party a minimum number of electors – candidates would have less of an incentive to campaign there.
This got us thinking about New York’s electoral votes. Presidential candidates already pay little attention to New York’s voters, since the state is considered reliably Democratic for presidential election purposes.
The candidates don’t spend much time campaigning here and they don’t spend much money on television commercials here. If New York adopted a proportional system, however, the 35% of New Yorkers who plan to vote for President Bush might have some effect on the choice of president. And presidential contenders might come to New York thinking that some electoral votes are in play. After all, the Empire State’s 31 electoral votes divide up better than Colorado’s nine.
As would California’s 55 electoral votes. California tends to go winner-take all Democrat, but it has a large Republican minority.
The American Constitution gives each state the authority to decide its own method for choosing presidential electors. If Democrats in a Republican-leaning state like Colorado are trying to change the system so that they gain more influence in choosing the Electoral College, they may well want to keep in mind that Republicans in New York are entirely capable of following suit and raising the question of their own undercounted votes.
