CHEYENNE — About 40 people crowded into a dim basement room in the Laramie County Courthouse on Tuesday afternoon to watch the county clerk test voting machines for the second time in eight days.
It was an atypical sight as these tests are usually sleepy affairs, drawing a handful of attendees — if any fewer.
A second test of Laramie County’s vote tallying equipment was performed at the request of the Laramie County Republican Party, which filed a complaint with the local district attorney over the first test to certify the voting machines Aug. 5.
The test appeared to run smoothly with no issues.
The Wyoming Republican Party followed up on that complaint, filing a lawsuit over the way the first test was conducted, arguing that since many of the candidates were given the exact same number of votes in the test, it was unlawful.
Wyoming Statute 22-11-104 says that during these tests, a different number of valid votes shall be assigned to each candidate running for an office, and for and against each measure.
Malcolm Ervin, Platte County Clerk and president of the Wyoming County Clerks Association, said the law ensures that when equipment is counting votes, it’s accurately counting the way ballots are marked.
“What we want to verify is when the tabulating equipment reads a mark, it’s reading it for the correct candidate,” Ervin said. “When you test each spot and have a unique number you can guarantee that candidate A, all of the votes that were intended for them were counted for them and not somebody else.”
Responding to the lawsuit last week, Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee called it an effort to “disrupt our current primary election and force my office to provide alternative means for counting ballots.”
But Lee still agreed to do a second test and didn’t comment about the ongoing lawsuit Tuesday.
Lee made it clear, however, that she considers the second test a “post-certification or additional testing” of the vote tabulators and not a redo of the original test, which the machines passed.
The Test
The second test, like the first, was performed on the county’s ES&S DS450 tabulator machines. These machines will only be used in the upcoming primary election to count the projected more than 5,700 absentee ballots.
An ES&S staffer was on hand assisting with loading test ballots into the machines.
The county’s ES&S DS200 machines will be used to process a much larger number of ballots on election day. These machines were tested privately July 19 using the same software as the DS450s.
Laramie County GOP Committeeman Dallas Tyrrell was at Tuesday’s test and said he would have liked to have seen those machines tested in public as well.
“I wish they all would be transparent so there’s no questions,” he said.
Less Drama
Unlike the first test, attendees were allowed to bring their cellphones with them.
Tuesday’s test counted 2,587 ballots, while the first test only counted 911.
Some of the observers Tuesday were more curious while others appeared highly suspicious, intently filming the election staff with their phones as staff loaded ballots into the vote tabulator trays.
Election integrity has become a high-profile issue in America since former President Donald Trump levied his claims that the 2020 election was rigged.
Most of the attendees Tuesday are members of the farther right wing of the Republican Party, including state Rep. Ben Hornok, R-Cheyenne, and state House candidates Ann Lucas, Gary Brown and Steve Johnson.
There did not appear to be any major issues or errors with Tuesday’s second test, which made Tyrrell say he felt more at ease about the upcoming election. The new test deck ballots provided by ES&S were all pre-approved by GOP party members and had different numbers of votes for all the candidates.
“It looks good,” he said. “It’s just very exciting because it’s the most important thing we do. So many people care that we have solid voting machines and can trust they are working.”
Lawsuit Continues
Even so, Caleb Wilkins, the attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Laramie County GOP, said no matter how well the test was performed Tuesday, he sees the second test and the lawsuit as separate issues.
Laramie County GOP Committeewoman Dani Olsen said although she agrees there were issues with the first test, she does not believe the lawsuit needs to continue.
“I would like to say there was no standing for the lawsuit, I’m not sure what the basis of that was for,” Olsen said.
Tyrrell attended the first test, which he said was only attended by a handful of people. It was this test he and others argued involved malfeasance because of the identical number of votes many of the candidates received and other more minor issues like crumpled ballots.
Over the past week, the Wyoming GOP has claimed a few other counties did their election tests the same way. One of these was Teton County, which also performed a new machine test Tuesday with no issues, said Teton County GOP Chair Mary Martin.
Ervin told Cowboy State Daily that although it’s true the original test was done incorrectly in accordance with state law, what happened didn’t discount the ability of the voting machines to count votes correctly.
“The equipment didn’t fail. The equipment did what it was supposed to do,” Ervin said. “It was our fault for not having a test deck ready.
“Weirdly, it grows your confidence in the equipment because the equipment knew what it was supposed to do, which was count, and it counted accurately.”
Republican U.S. Senate candidate John Holtz was at the second test and said he had concerns that if the machines weren’t certified correctly, it could allow Democrats to push an argument nationally that Wyoming’s three electoral votes shouldn’t be counted in the upcoming presidential election.
Laramie County Democratic Party Vice Chair Kelsey Johnson was also at Tuesday’s test. Johnson said she was pleased with how the second test went and never had any concerns about the machine’s integrity in the first place.
“I think the voting machines are working great,” she said. “I do not think there’s a problem with our elections and our county clerk is doing a great job with them. I have complete faith in what she’s doing.”
Even Lee had an upbeat attitude about Tuesday’s second test, saying she was encouraged by how many people showed up.
“Usually no one comes,” she said.
Back To The Suit
Among its demands, the lawsuit requested an injunction barring Lee from using voting machines in the Aug. 20 primary election, which would thereby require her to perform a hand count in the upcoming election.
Tyrrell acknowledged that hand-count elections have serious shortcomings.
“I don’t know how we would run that,” he said. “I’m hoping we can move on.”
Although there has been no formal response from the county yet in the lawsuit, Laramie County District Court Judge Catherine Rogers has been assigned the case.
Contact Leo Wolfson at leo@cowboystatedaily.com
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
