Colorado Governor Jared Polis recently signed a bill into law which will pledge the states’ electoral votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote. At first, this may seem like hardly a change. After all, currently the electoral votes pledge to the winner of the states’ popular vote. So, why does it matter?

The electoral college is designed to give people a voice in who becomes the President. The popular vote would do the same, but in a different way. For example, during the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but not the electoral vote. A big reason for this was her lack of presence in states she thought she had locked up. As a result, President Trump upset her in those states, leading to his win.

Now that we have no control over our electoral votes, do not be surprised when there is little to no campaigning done in Colorado. Both parties now know that they mainly need to win the popular vote, which would cause them to focus their campaigning in larger states, like California, Texas, New York, and Florida, to try to win the popular vote.

When this country was founded, they created it so that any state could be crucial, causing politicians to need to gain support from each state, instead of just the big ones. Politicians now think that they are smarter than the founding fathers (which they are wrong), and want the popular vote to decide who wins the election. This makes the small states virtually purposeless.

This push that Polis joined now contains 13 states, with 1 more state containing similar pending legislature. While it was created after the 2001 election, most states ignored it, until President Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.

Who Is Benefitted?

While this is being pushed by the Democrats, it ultimately helps Republicans. Most of the states that joined this coalition continuously vote Democrat, and their electoral votes will shift to Republican if a Republican nominee wins the popular vote, which is very much possible.

Will This Come Back To Bite The Democrats?

Most likely, yes. Once these states watch their electoral votes go to the party that didn’t win their state popular vote, they will push to reverse the legislation. Voters will be unhappy that the Presidential Nominees pay little attention to them. Don’t be surprised when this legislation doesn’t exist in Colorado in 10 years.