In a special meeting Monday morning, Jan. 31, the Chaffee Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) reviewed and approved the draft of a resolution that designates that for purposes of the county’s elections for the next decade, the county be divided into eleven elections precincts, rather than the existing nine precincts. Colorado Revised Statutes (CRS) specifies that the County Clerk and Recorder, with approval from the BoCC, establish these precincts after the most recent federal decennial census (2020).
Image of U.S. voting booths.
Photo courtesy of kshb.com
C.R.S. §1-5-101(3)(a), as amended, directs the Clerk, subject to BoCC approval, to establish at least one precinct for every 1,500 active eligible electors in the county, based on that census. But with BoCC approval, the clerk may establish one precinct for every 2,000 active eligible electors.
Colorado HB21-1047 added a new subsection to state statute, saying that “counties are not required to adjust precinct boundaries in the future until one or more precincts has more than twice the number of active voters as they did at the time of the most recent federal decennial census….”
Chaffee County Clerk and Recorder Lori Mitchell explained that not only did the 2020 Census show a population increase, but the latest Colorado legislative maps for the first time actually divided the county into not one, but two house districts: District #60, and District #13. This split meant that the county precincts had to be adjusted, to not split a precinct between two house districts. The shift also aligned all of Poncha Springs into a single new precinct.
The resolution recaps the precincts and active registered voter counts as of December 2021 in each precinct, and proposes to adjust the number of precincts to 11:
Precinct No. Number of Active Registered Voters as of 12/29/21
1 1481
2 1900
3 1156
4 1153
5 1817
6 1301
7 1565
8 1540
9 1395
10 1153
11 758
According to state statute, the decision and adjustments in the boundaries of precincts or the creation of new precincts for partisan elections must be completed no later than twenty-nine days prior to the first Tuesday in March.
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