Thermopolis resident Cheryl Aguiar isn’t backing off her fight against crossover voting even though the Wyoming Legislature passed a bill in its recent session greatly curtailing the practice in the Cowboy State.
If anything, Aguiar said she’s doubling down her efforts to defend and support the recently passed law.
Aguiar, who also chairs the Hot Springs County Republican Party, is continuing work on a 2024 ballot initiative to prohibit crossover voting, the practice of people changing party affiliation to impact the results of another party’s primary.
Lawmakers took a big step in this direction this year by passing a law that prevents people from changing party affiliation after the opening of the candidate filing period in mid-May. Prior to that, voters could change parties at any time, including at polling places on primary election day.
Crossover voting has been a hot button topic for many conservatives in Wyoming who believe the practice has been exploited and, in some cases, has potentially impacted political races.
Although there hasn’t been strong evidence found of crossover voting impacting any final election result in Wyoming, there was a substantial amount of crossover voting in the 2022 Wyoming Republican congressional primary race between former congresswoman Liz Cheney and U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, a landslide victory for Hageman.
“The idea of crossover voting is a little unethical,” Aguiar said. “It’s almost like crashing a party. Party primary elections are not for the general population.”
Reasons To Continue
Aguiar announced her ballot initiative long before House Bill 103 passed into law without Gov. Mark Gordon’s signature in March.
She is continuing to push it in case the new crossover voting law is “amended to death” to a point where its original intent is diluted.
Aguiar also said her ballot initiative differs from HB 103 in that it doesn’t address the issue of voter registration. Although she says leaving this piece out of her ballot initiative was a mistake, she also views it as a blessing in disguise as it keeps it alive because it helps distinguish the initiative from the new state law.
Voter registration is a point that certain skeptics of HB 103, like Gordon, have pointed to as a flaw with the bill, saying the way it’s written leaves ambiguity about whether new voters will be able to register after the lockout period starts when people can no longer change party affiliation.
Aguiar doesn’t believe HB 103 infringes on this right, saying it only addresses the cancellation of a registration.
“It’s probably the most misunderstood part of HB 103,” Aguiar said. “The state statute was completely taken out of context.”
Another purpose behind continuing the initiative is to circumvent other possible efforts that may try to achieve contradictory goals. Aguiar said she was told by the former Secretary of State’s office there can’t be two initiatives on the same ballot seeking to alter the same state statute.
“If you’re changing the same thing, you can’t ask the voter to wrap their heads around that,” she said.
Aguiar believes letting voters decide also could prevent the acceptance of other possible initiatives she opposes, like a proposal to enact ranked choice voting across the state.
She said she has about half of the required 29,730 signatures needed to qualify for the November 2024 ballot, but still has nearly a year to collect more.
Aguiar said she plans to collect signatures for this initiative and two others this summer. She would not disclose to Cowboy State Daily what the two other initiatives are.
This is not the first time a crossover voting ballot initiative has been tried. A similar effort led by Uinta County resident Karl Allred, who later served as interim secretary of state in 2022, was launched in 2019, but it was stymied by the COVID-19 pandemic.
What Do You Really Want?
Ultimately, Aguiar doesn’t believe restricting the timing of voter registration, the core element of her ballot initiative and HB 103, is the best way to prevent crossover voting.
She believes implementing a semi-open primary where the top two or three candidates advance to a general election would be best for Wyoming, encouraging the best possible candidates from both parties to run.
“They (Democrats) never campaign because they don’t have to,” Aguiar said. “This would force the good candidates from both parties to have to run. We wouldn’t have Rex Rammell up there.”
This is a system used in Washington and California, and partially in Nebraska.
Aguiar worries that the recently passed crossover voting measure and her ballot initiative could drive Wyoming Democrats to permanently register as Republicans.
“When you back someone into a corner, they either come out fighting or they completely lose,” she said. “Do we really want no Democratic Party?”
Photo: Cheryl Aguiar is working to put a ballot initiative to voters in 2024 to ban crossover voting in Wyoming. (Courtesy Photo)
