19 February 2012

One Man (Or Woman), One Vote, In Larimer County, Colorado

The race for precinct chair won't be competitive in Larimer County's two person precinct, with one house, and two voters who are married to each other, one a Republican, the other a Democrat. Usually a precinct has 1,200 to 1,500 voters, but precincts are drawn so that they have entirely the same set of elected officials and redistricting can confuse that issue. Larimer County was one of the first to abandon precinct level election administration in favor of "voting centers" so it doesn't affect how elections are conducted, although it does impair the privacy of the precinct level result if reported at that level.

Apart from precinct chair status in a political party (a role that I held for a few years in Denver), the decision means very little, since no one other than political party officials are elected from precincts and most of the interesting decisions made by political parties are made by delegates at the county level or higher. The post does generally carry with it, in addition to the obligation to distribute party propaganda to district residents, however, a seat on the vacancy committee used to fill vacant state legislative posts and nominate candidates for other vacancy elections.

The decision is temporary and likely to be corrected later in the boundary finalization process.

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