Public Comments

We have no congressional representation in Congress that aligns with the priorities of our community. Our smaller population is dominated by the much more conservative population of the western part of the state. Our community supports gun safety, truth not fiction, responsible immigration policy, environmental protections to preserve out beautiful land. We get votes against the hate crime act, votes to overturn a fair election, votes not to acknowledge the capital police. etc etc We need representation that aligns with our community’s priorities. Let our community be represented finally so we can be part of getting things done not just making noise that solves nothing.

Lakewood has little in common with Douglas County, please stop trying to change the district in ridiculous ways. Lakewood is all about the western slope, foothills and mountains, a desire for sustainability.

The Huerfano County Commission joined other rural governments and groups to encourage the Congressional Redistricting Commission (CRC) to create two rural districts and six for everyone else. So, they want the rural population, which was about 12.4% of the total in 2019, to have 25% of the state’s representation in Congress. Not only is that undemocratic, but it violates the intent of Amendment Y. The County Commission’s adopted resolution fits the definition of gerrymandering. I encourage the CRC to create districts that represent everyone equally. One rural district almost exactly fits the representational needs of rural residents. I urge the CRC to create no more than one rural district.

Good Afternoon, I am writing to comment on behalf of Colorado Legislative redistricting, for both my local house district and for the Congressional District where I currently reside. I have lived in Greeley since 2016. When I came here I learned of the growing and diverse community, as are Evans and Garden City. It is often forgotten that our area are home to communities intertwined with one other, sometimes with only a simple road dividing us. My Colorado House District, HD 50, is one which comprises of diverse parts of our area. We see the east Greeley, including the downtown district, the Northern Colorado Immigrant and Refugee Center, the University of Northern Colorado, Evans, and so much more. It’s a district which represents all the diversity that not only Colorado values, but this country values. To make any changes to this district, particularly including more of West Greeley, would mean changing the balance of scales towards the needs of this district. Presently, our district is one that values the diversity that makes us. With regards to my Congressional District, CD 4, a revision of this district is long overdue. This district, much too large in size, geographically in ways that do not make sense. One representative simply cannot adequately represent from the border of Northern Colorado to the southern border. The time has come to bring about new districts that will better serve constituents.

Dear Legislative Commission, Thank you for your time and consideration reviewing my request. My name is Kathi McCarty. I am writing to you today regarding my desire to maintain the contiguous portions of unincorporated Jefferson County in two house districts. Specifically, I am requesting House District 25 lines to stay the same. My request reflects 25+ years as a resident of Evergreen, along with working in the Foothills communities for a large amount of that time. I have a diverse and strong comprehension of the significant benefits having one Representative totally dedicated to the specific areas of unincorporated Jeffco represent after raising a family while also serving our residents volunteering and working in our Foothills communities much of this time. Having a Representative split between communities with very different agendas, needs and obstacles to overcome would not be in the best interest of all as Colorado continues to grow exponentially. This includes but is not limited to protecting our wildlife, natural resources, residents, and overall sustainability. Again, thank you for your time and review, Kathi McCarty 303.941.0444

June 18, 2021 The Colorado Redistricting Commission: I am writing to the commission as a lifelong Puebloan, a longtime farmer, and a member of the Adams State Board of Trustees to ask them to recognize the intrinsic and unbreakable cultural and legal ties that exist between the city of Pueblo and the San Luis Valley. I have seen our community grow and change over decades, but one constant has been the relationship between the communities in the Valley and the regional hub of Pueblo. In my capacity as an Adams State Board Member, I know that it is an institution of higher learning that serves a huge percentage of students from Pueblo and the San Luis Valley. My career in agriculture included a number of workers from both communities and I believe that we need to continue the tradition of representation that people in both areas have come to expect in the Colorado Legislature. One of the very first recognized communities of interest in Colorado includes the city of Pueblo and the San Luis Valley. I ask the commission to respect that tradition and protect this unique and vibrant part of Colorado CD 62. Respectfully, John Singletary 729 Sun Mesa Dr. Pueblo, CO 81006 (719) 569-1631

Commissioners, Thank you for your time to review my statement. My name is Patricia Nelson. I want to talk about living on the other side of the street. My old address sat on the south side of the dividing line for House District 48 and District 50. I used to live on the HD 48 side in the house that I was raised in. I was born and raised in East Greeley. I went to a school that had a cornfield on the other side of the street and man who owned a lot of goats. I am telling you this because I want you to know that I know this area, that I am from this area and there is a lot at stake. I would like to urge you to leave Greeley and Evans in the same House District. Representation matters. It wasn’t until recently that I saw a representative that looked like me. This community has grown and has worked together to put productive systems in place to serve its residents. We have worked to put in systems of support for vulnerable members of our community. We have also worked to make sure the people representing us reflect our values. Taking Evans out of HD 50 makes me feel like all of the voices that we now hear would be drowned out. I never felt heard by my Representative, in fact in the many occasions that I tried to communicate with them, I only met them once. I now live in House District 50. My community needs to be heard. There is so much we have worked for that would be impacted by this redistricting. Our District is so connected that I am not the only one who sometimes forgets I am going from one city to the next. We have worked to have representation that reflects our community. More and more we are seeing this happen. I would urge you not to take this from us. There is a lot more that our community can achieve if we are not separated. I understand that you all have a lot of work to do and tough decisions to make but I hope that you take my statement into consideration. Our community is a lot different than it used to be but it is beautiful, it has changed for the better. Respectfully, Patricia Nelson

June 17, 2021 Dear Commissioners Thank you for your service on the independent Congressional Redistricting Commission. My name is Erik Cornell and I am writing this testimony regarding the topic of Evans being structured with Greeley, as it is now, as opposed to the idea that it should somehow be associated with rural Weld County in a new HD50. I am currently a resident of Evans and have been since 2009. Over this time the Greeley/Evans area (as it is often referred to) has experience rapid growth like much of our State has. The entire time I have lived here, I can also say that Greeley and Evans have been, essentially, the same community. They are completely connected. To someone driving through our cities, only signs at the side of the road delineate where one city ends and the other begins. Similarly, the demographics of our communities are virtually indistinguishable. Like Greeley, Evans has an older East side of town, which has some older homes mixed with newer developments. The area West of Highway 85 has developed with housing progressing westward over the years, including the neighborhood I live in. Also both Greeley and Evans are very ethnically diverse communities. Splitting these two completely connected communities would certainly dilute the representation my community in Evans currently enjoys in HD50. Due to the nature of my job, I have the opportunity to travel though many communities in this State, and especially though Weld County. To say that Evans has more in common with communities such as La Salle, Milliken, Gilcrest, Platteville or Kersey than that of Greeley is simply untrue. Those are small rural towns with several miles between them. They are independent of each other and completely rural in nature, whereas Evans is essentially another part of Greeley and the Greeley/Evans area has a population of roughly 130,000 compared to these small towns which are all under 10,000 people. As a citizen who owns a home in Evans, I recognize that there are stark differences in the needs and concerns of communities like mine and those communities which are more rural and I would feel very misrepresented if Evans were placed in a district with communities with dissimilar goals and concerns, as I am sure those towns would as well. Thank you for your consideration. Erik Cornell Evans, Colorado

I live in west Greeley and I have lived in the Greeley area for over 40 years. I am concerned about the redistricting of HD 50. Greeley / Evans is one school district and functions virtually as one town. Greeley / Evans is a diverse community with diverse needs and issues. Over the years, the school district and the towns of Greeley and Evans have worked to meet the needs, solve issues and bring the diverse community together. Dividing the house district seat would interfere with all the work the school district and communities have accomplished. Please consider keeping HD 50 in tact for the well being of my communities. Marva Willcox

Redistricting comments by Harvie Branscomb intended for both Commissions. Please visit my website for more information: http://electionquality.com 1) District boundaries define election ballot styles. Colorado Clerk and Recorders must create a different paper ballot layout for every combination of districts that are coordinated onto a ballot. Districts that define these styles are not just CD, SD and HD plus of course County and County Commissioner Districts. Those districts appear on every ballot in a General and Coordinated Election. Coordinated elections also include Municipal Districts, Special Districts and School Districts and when they do, the number of styles multiplies and fragments. The Federal and State districts you are concerned with align around precincts to be adjusted to conform to the CD,SD and HD and County Commission District boundaries. Precincts that fill these districts naturally define a minimum and significant number of voters that fill a precinct thus ensuring no rare styles. This is wonderful, but that is before the complexity of the modernized Colorado election is added. 2) Unfortunately the other three types of districts cut across the existing precincts in ways that in some elections in some counties create styles for less than 10 voters. These splits are caused by Municipal and School and Special Districts. When this happens the clerks do more work and the paper ballots and the ballot images that are desired by the public for verification purposes are not all available through open records request until they are redacted or withheld. The decisions of the Commissions can affect this in a constructive manner if fully aware of the issue. The goal is to have all districts that might be coordinated ideally share the same precinct boundaries. yes the ideal is not achievable, but you can come closer than previous redistricting efforts have done. 3) Rare ballot styles ought to be minimized to reduce complexity and cost for election officials and to achieve transparent access to election evidence such as ballots and ballot images. District borders would preferably acknowledge and conform to School and Municipal District borders and to some extent even Special District borders. Since the School, Municipal and Special Districts do not undergo redistricting, for some cases it is only the CD,SD and HD redistricting process that can be depended upon to help achieve a reduction in ballot styles. 4) Small and medium sized counties should not be subjected to split into two or more Congressional districts. County borders should not be crossed by district boundaries in counties less well equipped to handle the complexity. For example Park and Eagle counties do not deserve this extra trouble. Subdividing CDs in low density and lower population counties unreasonably stresses both voters and officials. If large counties are the only ones split, district border changes impact the map by a matter of blocks instead of miles. Hardly anyone notices. 5) In my opinion, not just some large counties, but all large counties should be equally subject to the split CD effect. These counties have the financial ability and staff to handle the extra complexity that they experience because of their size. The largest counties should likewise be exempt from the concept that they must all reside inside one CD. But it is also true, for reasons of minimizing ballot styles, that county borders should be used when possible for new district borders, except when that suggests that too much of a large county is in all in one CD. 6) Not only are legislators’ chances for re-election affected by new district boundaries and their numbering, so are the roles of party officials who never achieve much widespread name recognition and are elected by small and sometimes insular partisan groups. When redistricted, these party leaders are automatically unseated from their constituencies. In order to achieve fairness for all affected, all of the districts should be renumbered as a part of the process. This renumbering produces maximum equity. A quantitative measure can be designed to ensure that no eligible voter (or candidate) is left within a same numbered district. Leaving voters in the same numbered district is not one of the criteria, is it? 7) To the extent that the districts remain the same, partisan officials are likely to remain in powerful positions for extended periods even longer than 10 years. When large portions of CDs remain numbered the same - such as so often proposed for CD1 (Denver) and CD5 (El Paso County) – these particular partisans achieve unfair advantage through longevity. It is not equitable to give advantage to a CD that is coincident with a populous county when other counties of similar size will be split or share their CDs. Please (and I know this will be an unusual request) for fairness reasons do not retain the current configurations of CD1 and CD5. 8) As stated above, there is an advantage to not splitting medium and small counties into several CDs. The example of one large county equals one CD represents an exception to that optimization. Single CD districts should not be perpetuated as explained simply by a knee-jerk application of a community of interest argument. CDs should all encompass multiple counties. 9) When boundaries between districts are being adjusted for arbitrary reasons of equalizing the number of constituents, this should take place by aligning boundaries both with county boundaries and boundaries with districts not subject to redistricting such as Municipal and School Districts to minimize instances of rare ballot style. 10) I am very excited about the Ensemble analysis approach as explained on June 18 but have a question about its practical utility. I wonder what gives confidence that the computer algorithm that chooses the relatively small number of ensemble of solutions among the countless possibilities is actually not biased in a way that affects the results. I wonder if there is adequate randomness built into that district-making algorithm. I too am concerned that the desired redistricting map may actually be an outlier among the ensemble approaches because it doesn’t happen to appear among the computer chosen ensemble. While pursuing these questions, one is inclined to be concerned that the Ensemble analysis might offer a surreptitious way to produce a confirmation bias to substantiate any map. I would love to read the response by the academics to this concern. 11) I would like to propose a different quantitative analysis to be performed to evaluate the partisan effect of a redistricting map. I would like to evaluate count of eligible voters who are going to find themselves redistricted into in either one new district or two or even three. I experienced a triple redistricting in the 2001 redistricting process – for me, all three district numbers changed. As a result through no action of my own, I lost three positions (Chair, Chair and Secretary). So I have personal experience with my fourth concern above. That leads me to ask for the above quantitative analysis and to propose a potentially controversial but fair suggestion- that no eligible voter be left in a numbered district to which they previously belonged. Of course this also has the effect of leveling the playing field for public elected officials as well (state and federal but not county officials). 12) I would like to thank the citizens who have chosen to undertake this extremely important role. I myself would have been glad to apply and to serve but was prevented from doing so by reason of my change of party affiliation that was required in order to be a watcher in both primary and general elections. I have watched dozens of Colorado counties’ elections in numerous cycles. I am actively pursuing an evidence-based election in Colorado. That explains my familiarity with this issue. 13) Thank you for your service and good luck. Please be in contact with election officials about the effect on election process of your work- particularly officials that are not in county municipalities such as Boulder and Denver, and also not only those who are representing large counties. 14) A record keeping and transparency detail. I have read at least 50% of the public comments and obviously this takes time. I am sorry to see that none of the attachments appear to be accessible to the public, and therefore in most cases, maps that are provided are not visible. I hope that this will be corrected soon so that the public input is more easily understood. Ten years ago I proposed a set of maps for the process and engaged in advocacy from all three district types: CD HD and SD. The process that was available at the time was deficient and I recognize that this process this time is much better. It can still be improved a bit more. Thanks.