County to vote to secede from Colorado and become 51st state

Residents in one rural Colorado county will get an opportunity to decide in November if they want to break away and form the 51st state.

In an unanimous vote on Monday, commissioners in Weld County voted to include the initiative on November's ballot, according to KDVR.

Voters will be asked: "Shall the Board of County Commissioners of Weld County, in concert with the county commissioners of other Colorado counties, pursue becoming the 51st state of the United States of America?"

During Monday's meeting, Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway (R) said that more than 85 percent of residents support the effort to break away a create a state called "North Colorado."

Cheyenne, Sedgwick and Yuma counties have already put similar initiatives on their ballots. Kit Carson, Lincoln, Logan, Morgan, and Washington counties have also held discussions about joining the new state.

Conway told KDVR that the counties were making the move because the state legislature was not listening to the voices of rural counties when it came to gun control and expanded fossil fuel production.

Even if the counties vote to secede, the state legislature, the governor and the U.S. Congress would all have to approve the plan to create a new state. In 1863, West Virginia became the last state to successfully secede by breaking away from Virginia to form a separate state.

Critics of the ballot initiative have mocked the plan by suggesting that the new state could be called "Fracktopia."

Watch this video from KUSA, broadcast Aug. 19, 2013.