{"id":49872,"date":"2020-12-14T19:17:04","date_gmt":"2020-12-15T02:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-democratic-electors-cast-nine-votes-for-joe-biden\/"},"modified":"2020-12-15T02:17:04","modified_gmt":"2020-12-15T02:17:04","slug":"colorado-democratic-electors-cast-nine-votes-for-joe-biden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-democratic-electors-cast-nine-votes-for-joe-biden\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Democratic electors cast nine votes for Joe Biden"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Alan
Alan Kennedy, of Denver, one of Colorado\u2019s nine Democratic presidential electors, wears a face mask as he waits to cast his ballot for Joe Biden at the State Capitol on Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, in downtown Denver.<\/span>David Zalubowski\/Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The vote formally seals Biden\u2019s win in Colorado, where he beat President Donald Trump by about 14 percentage points or nearly 400,000 votes.<\/p>\n

Electors met in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to cast their ballots for the presidential election on Monday \u2013 the date set by law for the meeting of the Electoral College. The results will be sent to Washington and tallied in a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.<\/p>\n

The electors\u2019 votes drew special attention this year because of Trump\u2019s refusal to concede the election and his baseless allegations of election fraud.<\/p>\n

During the Denver ceremony, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis commended state election officials for Colorado having the second-highest voter turnout in the nation, behind only Minnesota.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese numbers represent Colorado\u2019s commitment to our democratic republic, to doing our part to elect the next president and vice president of the United States,\u201d Polis said.<\/p>\n

He also praised Colorado\u2019s mail-in-voting system, which the state adopted in 2013 and which has had bipartisan support.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis election also confirms what we already knew \u2013 that Colorado\u2019s robust election system is easy, effective and secure,\u201d Polis said.<\/p>\n

First-time elector Alan Kennedy, an attorney and doctoral student at the University of Colorado-Denver, said he hoped Monday\u2019s nationwide vote brings acceptance of Biden\u2019s presidential victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI teach administrative law, I teach about the Constitution and my students were extremely worried that Trump would steal this election,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cAnd everything we\u2019ve seen has borne that out \u2013 that President Trump has repeatedly tried to steal the election despite the constitution, despite the electoral process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polly Baca, a four-time elector who served in various positions in the administrations of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, said this election was different for two reasons: Casting an electoral vote while wearing masks to wield off the coronavirus, and Trump\u2019s refusal to concede.<\/p>\n

Both Baca and Kennedy said they were critical of the Electoral College system and would prefer that presidential candidates be elected by popular vote alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI serve as an elector in order to educate the American populace. Our voters think they vote directly for president and vice president. They don\u2019t,\u201d Baca said.<\/p>\n

In November, Colorado residents voted to remain in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact \u2013 a coalition of 16 states and the District of Columbia that favor awarding state electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, rather than the winners of individual state votes for president.<\/p>\n

Patty Nieberg is a corps member for the Associated Press\/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alan Kennedy, of Denver, one of Colorado\u2019s nine Democratic presidential electors, wears a face mask as he waits to cast his ballot for Joe Biden at the State Capitol on Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, in downtown Denver.David Zalubowski\/Associated Press The vote formally seals Biden\u2019s win in Colorado, where he beat President Donald Trump by about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-49872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49872"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=49872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}