Colorado Amendment 36 facts for kids
Colorado Amendment 36 was a special idea in the state of Colorado back in 2004. It was a proposal that aimed to change how Colorado's votes for president were counted. Instead of giving all its votes to just one candidate, it suggested sharing them based on how many people voted for each candidate. This was a very different way of doing things! However, when people voted on it, the idea did not pass.
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Understanding How We Elect a President
When people in the United States vote for president, they are actually voting for a group of people called "electors." These electors then cast the official votes for president. This system is called the Electoral College. Each state gets a certain number of these electoral votes, based on its population.
How States Usually Vote
Most states use a system called "winner-take-all." This means that the presidential candidate who gets the most votes in that state wins all of the state's electoral votes. Even if a candidate wins by just a few votes, they still get every single electoral vote from that state.
What Was Amendment 36?
Colorado Amendment 36 was a proposal to change this "winner-take-all" system in Colorado. It suggested a new way called "proportional allocation." This means that if a candidate won, for example, 60% of the votes in Colorado, they would get 60% of Colorado's electoral votes. If another candidate won 40% of the votes, they would get 40% of the electoral votes. This would make the electoral votes more closely match how people voted in the state.
Why Was This Idea Unique?
At the time, almost every state used the "winner-take-all" system for presidential elections. Colorado Amendment 36 was a very unusual idea because it tried to change this traditional method. It was a big discussion point in Colorado during the 2004 election year.
What Happened to Amendment 36?
When the people of Colorado voted on Amendment 36 in November 2004, it did not pass. Only about one-third of the voters supported the idea. This meant that Colorado continued to use the "winner-take-all" system for its electoral votes, just like most other states.
