On Friday, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold visited Towaoc and met with officials from the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe to discuss automatic voter registration for the state’s tribal communities. The Colorado Votes Act passed by the legislature earlier this year means some enrolled tribal members in Colorado will be automatically registered to vote. It’s the first instance of automatic voter registration for enrolled members of tribal nations in the U.S., and is part of a broader election reform package by the Secretary of State’s office. Griswold says that since she was elected in 2019, her office has been considering ways they could try to reverse the historical voter suppression of Native American people in Colorado. And the funeral for the Cortez police officer who was killed in the line of duty last week takes place on Wednesday morning.
Chris Clements is a former news reporter for KSJD. He had previously covered literary arts as a reporter for The Chautauquan Daily in Chautauqua, New York, and graduated with a degree in English from Arizona State University. At KSJD, Chris has collaborated with KUNC (northern Colorado NPR) on water conservation stories, and had his spots regularly featured on NPR's national newscasts.