Electoral College protects rights of smaller states

Ms. Furmansky’s letter about the Electoral college is a classic example of liberal revisionist history. In her Oct. 6 letter in the Post Independent she states,”The Electoral College … was the flawed compromise to address the discrepancy created by the South’s voter eligibility laws.”

Sept. 17, 1787 was when our country’s Constitution, which included the Electoral college, was ratified. Then, only property owning or tax paying white males older than 21 could vote. The situation Ms. Furmansky refers to took place over a century later.

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The Electoral College was put in place to protect the rights of smaller states versus larger states. It had nothing to do with race or racism. We are not the State of America, we are the “united” states — 50 separate entities with separate unique interests.

A national popular vote is like letting two wolves and one sheep vote on what’s for lunch. The small state sheep always lose. Why would anyone, Republican or Democrat, give away their state’s sovereignty to the nation as a whole?

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I think someone was snoozing in history class.

Bruno Kirchenwitz
Rifle

Truth is on record

As good American citizens we need to respect the vote. It is the rule of law that we live by as members of society. We may or may not agree with the results of an election, but it is following the law that keeps us safe.

There are paper ballots that serve as a record of the vote reflecting the will of the people in this country. Legally challenge them and recount them as you wish but the truth is on record.

Joe Mollica
Glenwood Springs

Out of darkness into light

Without a doubt, the most disheartening result of this year’s generally disappointing election was Beatriz Soto and Leslie Robinson’s razor thin losses to incumbent Garfield County commissioners John Martin and Mike Samson.

Who cares that one old, white guy is replacing another in the White House? We here in Garfield County had the opportunity to dismiss two old, white guys and have two young, vibrant, progressive women, one a Latina, take their place, and we damn near did it. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades and it won’t get you a cigar, but the narrowness of the margin portends favorably for Garfield County.

Martin complained Soto focused too much on national issues, out of the control of local governments. The commissioners giving $1.5 million of oil and gas mitigation funds to a Denver law firm to fight the regulations set forth by the Air Quality Control Commission to protect public health is a local issue. Wouldn’t that money have been better spent retraining oil and gas workers for other trades in anticipation of the industry’s inevitable demise?

Climate change isn’t just a federal issue, either. With Mitch McConnell blocking any substantive climate legislation to come out of the House the next few years, don’t look for any help from the feds. State and local governments are going to have to take the reins. Colorado, municipalities like Glenwood Springs and Aspen, and counties like Pitkin have done so.
At a recent commissioner’s meeting, Commissioner Tom Jankovsky, who wasn’t up for reelection this time, had the gall to lecture Robinson that her positions on oil and regulations wouldn’t play in District 3, the seat she was running for.

What difference does that make? Garfield County isn’t a home rule county. The whole county gets to vote for the commissioners. Good thing for Jankovsky we aren’t a home rule county or Paula Stepp would’ve won in District 1 in the 2018 elections.

Jankovsky shouldn’t get comfortable in that commissioner’s chair. He’s up for reelection in 2022 and the closeness of this year’s tallies reveals the demographics of Garfield County have changed. Incumbent state Sen. Bob Rankin barely nosed out Karl Hanlon in District 8. Joe Biden and 3rd District congressional candidate Diane Mitsch Bush carried Garfield County.
The three senior citizens on the Garfield County commission should keep in mind, the county’s future is younger, more feminine, progressive and darker complected.

Fred Malo Jr.
Carbondale

Keep the Electoral College

The answer is simple to keep the Electoral College. It has nothing to do with slavery like some people think it does. This is the problem with our education system and how history is not taught correctly, and parts of history are left out or rewritten to change history.

The Founders, where quite genius in installing this mechanism for electing the President. If we went by the majority vote all the candidates would have to do is go up and down the western and eastern seaboard to the heavily populated states to campaign and the rest of the country wouldn’t see the candidates or have a say because their populations would be too small for the candidates to campaign in.

According to Alexander Hamilton, the Electoral College is if “not perfect, it is at least excellent,” because it ensured “that the office of the President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” The founders wanted to balance the will of the populace against the risk of “tyranny of the majority,” in which the voices of the masses can drown out minority interests.

Curt Hanson
Silt