CO: Libertarian Candidate for Governor Advocates Approval Voting

From The Denver Daily News:

There’s at least one gubernatorial candidate happy to see Tom Tancredo enter the race for governor as a third-party candidate, and we’re not talking about Democratic candidate John Hickenlooper. Libertarian candidate Jaimes Brown welcomes Tancredo into the race “with open arms.” . . .

Brown believes Tancredo’s run is further evidence that the nation’s two-party system is broken, and he uses the event to advocate for a system known as approval voting. In an approval voting system, voters are allowed to vote for multiple candidates. The candidate with the most votes wins. Advocates say the system cuts back on “cheap elections.” They say the two-party system forces voters to simply vote down their party line, ignoring third-party candidates that may be more attractive to them, but that don’t get the vote because voters don’t believe they have a chance of winning. The system especially comes in handy during primaries, say advocates.

Many voters vote for the primary candidate with the most money, or the most establishment backing because they feel that will position the candidate to better defeat the other party come the general election. But Brown says the approval voting system puts an end to all of this. “I get that all the time that you’ve got to vote for someone that’s going to win. Well, shouldn’t you vote for who you want to win, not for someone who you’ve already pre-determined as being the only possibility?” said Brown.

“If you were falling into this trap of the Libertarian is going to take votes from the Republican, you might also vote for the Republican. But a lot of people don’t want to vote for the Republican, they want to vote for a Libertarian, or a Constitution, or even a Green for that matter.”

If any AV/RV supporters want to write in to the paper to give them props or provide more details on the voting method, be sure to head over to the Denver Daily News contact page, which has an embedded contact form. You might also be interested in learning more about Libertarian candidate for governor of Colorado Jaimes Brown as well.