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No way out: Rural Colorado is outvoted at every turn
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

No way out: Rural Colorado is outvoted at every turn

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Tom Harrington manages a 500-cow operation on the Crystal River Ranch, two miles from the town of Carbondale on a mesa west of town.  He grew up in Ridgway.  A friend sent him some papers from the North Park area of Walden showing the school news, a note from the old folks' home and local ads. "I looked through these papers and I thought, man, this is like the 70s in Ridgway," he said. Those things have disappeared from the Carbondale he lives in now. "They've certainly left here." He has also watched the valley floor transform in his 18 years on the ranch, hayfields replaced by a shopping complex and apartment buildings, the quiet gone with it. "Once things are paved over," he said, "they never come back....
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Colorado’s dirty voter roll: Where the ballots go
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s dirty voter roll: Where the ballots go

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice  Getting on and getting off the voter rolls were the first two questions. In Part 3, Mike O’Donnell turns to where Colorado voter data and ballots go next—through ERIC, out-of-state mailing addresses and overseas voting rules he argues deserve closer scrutiny. The Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) ERIC is a nonprofit membership-based organization currently supported by twenty-six states, including Colorado. Member states share detailed voter rolls and DMV information with ERIC.  Colorado taxpayers pay around $50,000 a year for their membership in ERIC and the (alleged) primary benefit to the state is that ERIC monitors NCOAs that they share with the Colorado Secretary of State although,...
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The bonds that cannot be dissolved
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Rocky Mountain Voice, National, Top Stories

The bonds that cannot be dissolved

By Rocky Mountain Voice Editorial Board The Declaration of Independence opens by taking something apart. Before it reaches life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it lays out why one people must "dissolve the political bands" that tie them to another. The founding act is a break. The signers put a tie of their own in its place. The last line is a pledge they made to each other, "our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." Two hundred fifty years later, that pledge still holds. We asked readers on the Fourth to show us how they were marking America's 250th birthday and Colorado's 150th. The answers came from Washington, the California coast, a Delta County parade, festivities in Thornton, family fun in a backyard, a Castle Rock-to-Westminster flag drive and a smoke-dimme...
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The creativity weapon: Loving the crooked man
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, Devotional, National, Top Stories

The creativity weapon: Loving the crooked man

By Drake Hunter | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice When I was little, one of my favorite people ever was Grandma Ivy, still is. She wasn't famous. She never stood behind a pulpit or wrote a book. But she was a superhero. During many of my toddler and elementary years, she was my guardian, my safe place, and my greatest teacher. Like so many grandmothers, she had a way of turning ordinary moments into lasting memories. One of those memories was a simple nursery rhyme she taught me: "There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile. He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile. He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse, and they all lived together in a little crooked house." Back then, I thought it was just a funny rhyme. I smiled because everything in...
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Colorado’s dirty voter roll: Getting off isn’t so easy
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s dirty voter roll: Getting off isn’t so easy

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Getting onto Colorado's voter rolls is only half the story. In Part 2, Mike O'Donnell examines how names come off the rolls—and why he argues the current process often leaves outdated registrations behind. Centenarian Registrants in Colorado The 2026 World Population Review estimates that there are 890 centenarians (people aged 100 or older) currently living in Colorado.  According to the public Colorado voter roll, the state is home to 1,569 centenarians. Different local news sources identify that three 109 year old individuals potentially and currently share the title of the oldest Coloradan alive today. But according to the public Colorado voter roll, there are thirty-four registrants who are older, t...
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The American Dream still depends on rewarding hard work
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

The American Dream still depends on rewarding hard work

By Gabe Evans | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice When our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, they envisioned a nation that could stand the test of time. A United States of America that not only encouraged freedom and independent thought, but that structurally safeguarded it. They believed in a nation defined by liberty, opportunity, personal responsibility, and an enduring love of country.  Today, 250 years later, we are living the future they imagined.  Our nation is known globally as the land of opportunity, where the American Dream thrives and is achievable for anyone who has the resolve to pursue it. That sense of promise is deeply personal to my family and I, as it is what led my Abuelo Cuauhtemoc Chavez — who was born in Mexico — to ...
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Principles over popularity: Lessons from the Declaration of Independence for Douglas County Schools
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Principles over popularity: Lessons from the Declaration of Independence for Douglas County Schools

By Laureen Boll | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Douglas County School District (DCSD) board members will be deciding later this year whether to resume formal collective bargaining with the Douglas County Federation (a local affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers), and a primary deciding factor will be the results of a survey of teachers and staff.  This follows union pressure earlier in 2026 and comes after years of the federation advocating for a return to a contract model. The political composition of the DCSD school board has shifted back and forth over the decades, reflecting the community’s own evolving priorities. In 2012, a reform-minded board allowed the long-standing collective bargaining agreement (CBA) to expire, moving the district to operat...
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Nick Shirley’s message to Colorado: Follow the money. Knock on the doors.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Nick Shirley’s message to Colorado: Follow the money. Knock on the doors.

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Nick Shirley spent Saturday night walking the Freedom Fest audience through the questions that have taken him from hotels near Denver International Airport to empty daycare centers in Minnesota and apartment complexes in Aurora. Interviewed by Jeff Hunt, co-host of the Jeff and Bill Show on Denver's 710 KNUS, Shirley spent less time talking about what he uncovered than how he uncovered it. Colorado was one of the first places he looked Long before a Minnesota daycare investigation made him nationally known, Shirley found himself in Colorado after repeatedly hearing migrants at the southern border mention the same destination. Denver. He came to look.  "You guys are from Latin America? It's cold in Denver," he remembered asking....
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Money didn’t win Colorado’s primary. The ground game did.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Money didn’t win Colorado’s primary. The ground game did.

By Rocky Mountain Voice Editorial Board One of Colorado's biggest races still isn't settled. Two days after the polls closed, the Republican primary for governor had not been called. Victor Marx led Barb Kirkmeyer by about 2,000 votes statewide—39.86 percent to 39.43 percent, with Scott Bottoms third at 20.71 percent—in the Secretary of State's Thursday morning count. Marx's edge, 2,181 votes out of more than 500,000 cast, sits just outside Colorado's mandatory recount range, which trips at half a percentage point.  On the Democrat side, the race was settled. Attorney General Phil Weiser defeated U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, 56.71 percent to 43.29 percent. Colorado doesn't finish voting when the polls close. And neither do Colorado's campaigns. The real story from Tues...
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Tenth Circuit strikes down DOJ detention theory, ruling affects Colorado courts
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Tenth Circuit strikes down DOJ detention theory, ruling affects Colorado courts

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Rigoberto Santillan Quiroz entered the United States without inspection in 2006.  ICE arrested him at a traffic stop on November 2, 2025 and initiated removal proceedings on the ground that he entered without admission or parole.  His federal habeas petition, filed in the Western District of Oklahoma, became Quiroz v. Mullin.  On June 30, the Tenth Circuit ruled in his favor, covering six states and striking down the theory behind 722 such petitions filed in Colorado in 2026 through June 15. What the court decided Judges Federico, Bacharach, and Ebel produced a 48-page unanimous opinion, with Federico authoring.  The government's theory rested on §1225(b)(2)(A) of the Immigration and National...
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