The El Paso County Redistricting Commission convened for its introductory meeting earlier this week, launching the process of redrawing commissioner districts for the first time since 2017.

The redistricting commission, consisting of the current five members of the El Paso County Board of Commissioners, charged staff with the Clerk and Recorder’s Office and other county officials with creating five preliminary maps using several geographic and cultural factors during its meeting on Monday.

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Under House Bill 21-1047, passed in 2021, districts must be redrawn by Sept. 30 of the second odd-numbered year after a national census and cannot see more than 5% deviation between the most and least populous districts in a county.

The bill also encourages, as much as possible, preserving “communities of interest – such as urban, rural or trade areas, or other factors like education, environment or water needs – to ensure “fair and effective representation.”

The commissioners, all Republicans, appointed themselves to oversee the process without a citizen advisory committee at a controversial and highly attended regular meeting on April 18, during which dozens of residents argued that such a move would disenfranchise Democratic voters and accused the board of gerrymandering, given that a Democrat has not sat on the board since Stan Johnson’s election in 1970.

The decision was “allowing the fox to guard the henhouse,” one resident said at the April meeting.

Commissioners argued that since all but one of them, Carrie Geitner of District 2, were term-limited, they could not act in self-interest and that several districts were, indeed, competitive in the 2020 presidential and 2022 gubernatorial races.

“Every county seat is held by a Republican, so the argument that the (commissioner districts) are not reflective of a county would be true if we had a treasurer, sheriff, assessor that were split party and (commissioners) were all one party,” Commissioner Longinos Gonzalez said at the time. “That is clearly not the case. I understand the belief system there, but I don’t think it’s necessarily accurate.”

According to a presentation by Clerk and Recorder Steve Schleiker on Monday, each new district should have a population of roughly 146,550 based on 2020 U.S. Census data.

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As a result, District 1 needs to lose around 1,800 people, while Districts 2 and 4, the fastest-growing districts, need to lose 7,200 and 4,600, respectively. With growth mostly locked in, Districts 3 and 5 should gain 7,800 and 5,700, respectively.

Government Affairs Department Director Ryan Parsell recommended the commission use the Cook Partisan Voting Index as a standard to gauge election competitiveness among the districts. The index, he said, takes voting results from the past two presidential elections, averages them, and compares them to the nationwide average to determine how strongly Republican, Democrat or unaffiliated a region may be.

The index is considered the “most effective” measurement used by political science experts, he said, and is “very broadly used” by academics, in media coverage and by the Almanac of American Politics.

According to the measurement, Districts 1 and 2 are the most heavily Republican, 4 and 5 are moderately Republican, and 3 is “even,” he said.

While former President Donald Trump carried all five districts in 2016, Districts 3 and 5 narrowly swung blue in 2020. In November, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, carried 3 and 5 and Gov. Jared Polis, also a Democrat, carried 3, 4 and 5.

Geitner asked, given the heavy Republican sway in some districts, whether it was possible “mathematically” to make every district equally competitive by carving in blue areas.

“Doing those sorts of surgical lines, while not breaking minority groups or some other communities of interest, could be problematic,” Parsell said. “But never say never.”

Ahead of the next five redistricting meetings, which will each occur in a separate district, commissioners requested its staff draw five preliminary maps as a starting point to be reworked.

Upcoming Redistricting Commission meetings:

? District 1 meeting, June 12: Lewis Palmer High School, 5:30 p.m.

? District 2 meeting, June 21: Mountain View Academy, 5:30 p.m.

? District 4 meeting, July 6: 5:30 p.m., location to be announced

? District 3 meeting, July 10: 5:30 p.m., location to be announced

? District 5 meeting, July 17: 5:30 p.m., location to be announced

July 14 is the last day for the public to submit proposed maps.

Because commissioners representing Districts 2, 3 and 4 are elected on presidential cycles and residents of 1 and 5 elected on gubernatorial cycles, moving voting precincts between districts to achieve equal populations could create “super-voters” who vote again in 2024 or disenfranchise others until 2026.

“People would prefer to miss an election cycle if it meant the end of being disenfranchised for 50 years,” said John Jarrell, a resident and former District 5 commissioner candidate, on Monday.

Still, one requested map will show regulated populations with “minimal changes” in election cycles and another will show a minimum amount of precinct moves.

“There is just absolutely no way to get us to something that’s perfect with all of those different wide varieties of communities of interest,” Commissioner Stan VanderWerf said. “The best approach is to try to do the best that we can based on a large number of types of calculations.”

Gonzalez requested a map keeping Security-Widefield, Hanover and Fountain together as communities of interest, while a fourth would move the Air Force Academy to District 3, keeping the west side of Interstate 25 together as a community of interest with special wildland urban interface needs, thus splitting Monument into two districts.

A fifth map would seek to overpopulate Districts 3 and 5 and underpopulate the rest to account for expected mass growth in coming years.

“I would like to keep them under the deviation so that they have more chance to grow into their numbers,” Commissioner Holly Williams said.

More information on the redistricting process, meeting presentations and legal parameters can be found on the county website.

Residents are encouraged to submit public comments and proposed maps through the website, which can be reviewed at future meetings. According to Schleiker, the county is providing free maps by current district, voter precincts and school districts to assist with future map development.

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