Let’s all be thankful for Colorado’s system of allowing independents to vote in the party primary of their choosing. This means Colorado can be better than the national climate of intense political polarization. The State’s Republican party central committee deserves credit and thanks for recently voting down their party chairman’s strange proposal to count all non-votes as yes-votes. His proposal was a thinly disguised attempt to get enough votes to opt the Republican party out of Colorado’s primary election system. The last election clearly shows the benefit of Colorado’s system.

Rather than Tina Peters, the top-line nominee for Secretary of State coming out of the party convention, in the general election we voters had a choice between a competent Jefferson County Clerk and the Democrat incumbent. That meant an election focused on policy debates rather than on extremist election conspiracy theories.

Let’s also all of us start using our common sense. Would Fox News have paid Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million to settle Dominion’s defamation lawsuit if there had been a shred of evidence of voting machine fraud? Can any of us in Colorado have any illusions about former President Trump’s character when we saw him attack last year’s Republican Senate candidate Joe O’Dea for being insufficiently loyal? Isn’t it time we all turn down the overblown rhetoric and consider whether or not there might be something to all the recent Trump indictments when the election of a Colorado Republican Senator counted for less than absolute loyalty? Isn’t it time we move forward by looking for what unites – rather than divides – us?

I think there is far more agreement among Colorado voters than is often apparent from the news. Let’s have those genuine policy debates and elect moderate voices that represent us.

John Winkel, Arvada