Colorado Secretary of State Pushes Transparency, Withholds Emails on National Popular Vote Interstate Compact – IOTW Report

Colorado Secretary of State Pushes Transparency, Withholds Emails on National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

WFB: Jena Griswold, the newly elected secretary of state in Colorado, advocates transparency for state lawmakers, yet recently declined to disclose internal communications from her office about the “National Popular Vote” effort that would be a constitutional workaround to the Electoral College.

Shortly after Griswold, a Democrat, testified to the Colorado General Assembly in favor of legislation aimed at having the state join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, the Washington Free Beacon requested communications from her office that referenced the compact spanning a two-week period.

Some communications were turned over as a matter of law under the Colorado Open Records Act. However, the secretary’s office also noted that some documents were withheld because of the “work product” privilege, an exclusion prescribed in the law. The same statute that carves out the work product privilege also allows the elected official to turn over the documents voluntarily.

When the Beacon requested that the privilege be waived and the documents turned over, a legal analyst replied, “I’m sorry, but the Secretary does not release work product prepared for her.”

The denial of emails and possibly other communications or writings comes just weeks after Griswold gave testimony to a committee in the state general assembly about increased transparency regarding campaign finance, but in which she praised transparency in broad generalities as well.

For example, Griswold spoke out against “secret political spending,” saying “Coloradans deserve to know who is trying to influence their vote and how they are trying to do it.”

“I do want to be clear on one point: I know this isn’t going to be easy,” Griswold said in testimony published on her state website. “There will be some Democrats and some Republicans who will say they have concerns about more transparency. But I believe that the majority of us here can agree that transparency is good for democracy and we can do more. Campaign finance reform is about making sure that everyone plays by the same set of rules; it’s about giving voters the facts.”

“Trust in government is at an all-time low,” she added later. “But we can work together to answer our constituents’ call for leadership. Let’s take action to build a democracy that all Coloradans can believe in, and pave the way as a leader for the nation.”

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPV) is a state-by-state effort that would elevate to president the candidate who won the most votes nationwide rather than the candidate who won the most Electoral College votes under the current winner-take-all system employed by every state except Maine and Nebraska.

Usually the candidate with the most votes nationwide is also the winner in the Electoral College, but on rare occasions, such as in 2000 and 2016, that was not the case.

Most states pledge all of their presidential electors to the candidate receiving the most votes in that state. States that have joined the NPV would pledge their electors to the candidate who received the most votes nationwide, regardless of how the citizens in the state voted.

The compact would not go into effect until enough states have joined that their number of electors totals 270 or more, the figure needed to win the presidency. The states that have joined currently have a combined 172 electors, and Colorado currently has legislation moving forward that would add the state’s nine.  more here

SNIP:

Colorado OKs joining National Popular Vote compact to cast all electoral votes for popular winner in presidential elections.

12 Comments on Colorado Secretary of State Pushes Transparency, Withholds Emails on National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

  1. We, Colorado, had a secretary of state, Wayne Williams, that was recognized nationally as having the most secure voting system in the country. And then a woman with NO experience, and I mean NONE, got elected by the same people who chose a women abusing fag as Governor.

    The same perve who is now pushing a bill to MANDATE every child in school be indoctrinated with the LGBTQ W.T.F. agenda!

    What could possibly go wrong?

    Oh, and did anyone else get an AOC vibe reading her comments, or was it just me?

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  2. This compact will last right up to the first state that votes for the popular winner when the state voted the other way. Then all heck will break loose. SCOTUS will rule the compact unconstitutional and that will be the end of that…until the leftys twink up another angle.

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  3. The Electoral College was created for the specific purpose of NOT having a popular vote i.e. mob rule so that everyone and every location was represented, not just a select few in a couple of elite enclaves. Dems can’t win without cheating.

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  4. National Popular Vote is based on Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives each state legislature the right to decide how to appoint its own electors. Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in Article II, Section 1
    “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….”
    The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”

    The Constitution does not prohibit any of the methods that were debated and rejected. Indeed, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors using two of the rejected methods in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789 (i.e., appointment by the legislature and by the governor and his cabinet). Presidential electors were appointed by state legislatures for almost a century.

  5. Because of current state-by-state statewide winner-take-all laws for Electoral College votes, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution . . .

    Almost all small and medium-sized states and almost all western, southern, and northeastern states are totally ignored.

    Our presidential selection system has cut out 4 of every 5 people living in America from the decision. Presidential elections shrink the “sphere” of public debate to only a few thousand swing voters in a few states.

    The only states that have received any campaign events and any significant ad money have been where the outcome was between 45% and 51% Republican.

    George Soros’ PAC as of Feb. 21, 2019 will invest $100 million in four 2020 swing states – Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

    The Cook Political Report, as of Jan. 10, 2019, believes “There are just five toss up states, representing 86 electoral votes: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”

    The Columbus Dispatch, as of Jan. 9, 2019, believes there will be “just seven states [with 105 electoral votes, where the winner is not predictable already] to allocate. Trump will be 66 electoral votes shy of re-election and the Democratic ticket will need 41 electoral votes to win back the presidency. The seven states are Arizona (11), Florida (29), Michigan (16), New Hampshire (4), North Carolina (15), Pennsylvania (20) and Wisconsin (10).”

    Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in 2015 was correct when he said
    “The nation as a whole is not going to elect the next president,”
    “The presidential election will not be decided by all states, but rather just 12 of them.

    Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.

    With the end of the primaries, without the National Popular Vote bill in effect, the political relevance of 70% of all Americans was finished for the presidential election.

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