Population growth in Douglas County is forcing elections officials to create 13 additional precincts — for a total of 168 countywide — to accommodate nearly 35,000 voters who didn’t live there two years ago.
Don’t forget that, as recently as 2015, 10 new precincts were added to account for the county’s burgeoning population numbers then.
“Dougco is growing like a weed,” Douglas County clerk and recorder Merlin Klotz said Wednesday.
On average, he said, his office registers a net of 53 new vehicles a day. And according to U.S. Census Bureau data released in March, two of the five fastest-growing suburbs in metro Denver from 2010 to 2015 are in Douglas County. Castle Rock took fourth place, with a 15 percent growth rate during those five years. At the top of the list was Lone Tree, with a 19 percent jump.
This week, the county commissioners approved a plan to create the 13 new precincts and adjust the boundaries of 31 others. The changes, which are spurred by a state statute limiting the number of voters in a precinct to no more than 2,000, will become effective in February and apply to next year’s midterm election.
The active-voter rolls in Douglas County jumped from 190,649 in April 2015 to 223,492 this past November — a 17 percent growth rate.
Klotz said most of the new precincts will be placed where growth has — on the east side of Castle Rock and along Hess Road, Ridgegate Parkway and Lincoln Avenue between Parker and Lone Tree.
That took sitting down with political party leaders and poring over geographic information system software to make the most accurate projections as to how many new voters will emerge from the various subdivisions that are under construction in the county.
“We stretched that out to what we think we’ll have in 2020,” Klotz said.
Then, following the 2020 census, Douglas County will have to do it all over again.