Statement from Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams:
Since 1959, Colorado law has required electors to vote for their pledged
candidates. Coloradans cast their votes based on these pledges.
Unfortunately two faithless electors – prior to even taking office – have
arrogantly thumbed their noses at Colorado’s voters and have announced
their intent to violate Colorado law.
Instead of honoring the will of the Coloradans who voted for them,
these two faithless electors seek to conspire with electors from other states ​to
elect a president who did not receive a single vote in November​. Indeed, the
very Federalist 68 they cite cautions us that “every practical obstacle should
be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption.” Yet that is exactly what the
electors here have succumbed to: cabal, intrigue and corruption. The court
should reject this illegal conspiracy.
Make no mistake, this is not some noble effort to fight some unjust or
unconstitutional law; rather, this is an arrogant attempt by two faithless
electors to elevate their personal desires over the entire will of the people of
Colorado. And in so doing, they seek to violate Colorado law and their own
pledges. The very notion of two Colorado electors ignoring Colorado’s
popular vote in an effort to sell their vote to electors in other states is odious
to everything we hold dear about the right to vote. It is this type of evil that
President Franklin Roosevelt warned us about when he cautioned that voters
– not elected officials such as these faithless electors – are “the ultimate
rulers of our democracy.”
Simply stated, there is no honor in their actions, and my office will
vigorously defend the will of the people of Colorado over two faithless
individuals who refuse to uphold their pledge to give voice to Colorado’s
electorate at the national level.