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May 19, 2022 08:59 AM UTC

Who Needs Democracy, Anyway?

  • 16 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Perennial GOP gubernatorial candidate Greg Lopez (R).

9NEWS’ Kyle Clark reports on an audio recording of Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Lopez, speaking a few days ago to Republicans in the remote mining town of Silverton about his plan to put a stop of the GOP’s terminal slide in recent Colorado elections. The plan is simple, and we’ve heard variations of it proposed in Colorado before: making rural votes worth more than urban votes.

Lopez outlined his proposal at a May 15 campaign stop in Silverton. An audio recording of the event made by a political tracker was provided to 9NEWS.

“One of the things that I’m going to do, and I’ve already put this plan together, is, as governor, I’m going to introduce a conversation about doing away with the popular vote for statewide elected officials and doing an electoral college vote for statewide elected officials,” Lopez said.

Lopez said his electoral college plan would weight counties’ votes based on their voter turnout percentage to encourage turnout.

“I’ve already got the plan in place,” Lopez said. “The most that any county can get is 11 electoral college votes. The least that a county can get is three.”

Back in 2019, failed attorney general candidate turned AM radio host George Brauchler proposed changing one chamber of the legislature, presumably the state senate, into a body representing the state’s 64 counties “equally” instead of districts divided equally by population. The numerical superiority of conservative rural counties would instantly flip the chamber to permanent Republican control, requiring only the democratic peculiarity of San Juan County’s 646 people having as much representative say as Denver’s 715,878.

And the people of Denver would somehow, you know, vote for this.

Similarly, 9NEWS did the math with Greg Lopez’s proposal for an “electoral college” for statewide races and found that, sure enough, dirt would triumph over people once again and elect Republicans even with a clear majority of Colorado voters voting against Republican candidates! After watching Donald Trump stake his claim to the presidency twice despite losing the popular vote by millions, Lopez is happily conceding that Colorado Republicans can’t win a majority of Colorado voters either and offering the GOP faithful who, let’s be honest, aren’t big fans of democracy these days anyway, a “solution.”

In reality, applying the inherent inequality of the federal Electoral College to the antiquated political geography of Colorado’s 64 rural counties makes a compelling argument against both the Electoral College and the U.S. Senate’s “equal representation of states.” The absurd results generated on our smaller scale application tell a much bigger story. It’s also a hell of a thing to admit to voters ahead of an election.

Maybe not in San Juan County, but everywhere people are.

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16 thoughts on “Who Needs Democracy, Anyway?”

  1. Sorry.  A county of a few thousand should have less of a say than a county of 800,000.  And have these clowns read Lucas v. 44th General Assembly?  Of course, with the current SCOTUS, this antidemocratic horseshit could be blessed.

  2. It’s both somewhat refreshing and also downright chilling that Republicans now simply abandon any pretense that they just don’t care about getting the most votes any more.

        1. "how about insisting?"  

          My simple answer is that in order for the secessionists to leave, they must pay a minimum of $1 billion to the rest of Colorado taxpayers for all the infrastructure our tax dollars have built for them.

          1. naw, they paid taxes already.  But we're keeping CSU. UNC, NJC and AIMS.

            They get Colorado Christian University, which will be relocated to the old sugar factory in Ovid.

  5. Someone should ask Pam Anderson, but the part about weighting counties’ votes based on their voter turnout percentage seems like a logistical nightmare. You typically don't know voter turnout percentage until days or weeks after election day, and voter turnout percentage changes year to year.  Other than that, the whole idea sounds awesomely bad.

    1. In addition to being a logistical nightmare, there is zero chance it would increase participation. Why would Republicans in Denver turn out, or Democrats in El Paso, if they knew their participation would increase the “weight” of their county’s vote? If you know your county is going to vote opposite yours, you will stay home. The obvious way to increase participation – one person, one vote – whether it is a Republican vote in California or a Democrat in Wyoming.

  6. After the win for Mastriano in PA, it appears the "divine right of Governors" is now part of the GOP platform. Not surprised to see the Colorado GOP follow suit.

  7. Well, it WOULD provide a great reason to consolidate (or eliminate) counties. 

    There are 65 State House districts, with each representing a nearly equal population in the decennial census.  Use those as a basis for representation and the result would be similar to the partisan division of the House — 41 D to 24 R. 

     

  8. So then: punching out his pregnant spouse was all good cuz they both went to jail, not just him; if elected he'll pardon election criminal Tina Peters; and dirt > human beings.

    Normally, a candidate this legendarily awful would have 0.00% chance. However, these are not normal times, and evil slapdicks like Lopez are exactly what the contemporary GQP wants.

    1. Admittedly, a candidate as fumble-butted as Hidi hoho makes it a difficult choice.

      But hitting a pregnant woman is unforgivable.  This creep belongs in prison, not the governor's mansion.

       

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