DOUGLAS — Some in the Wyoming Republican Party believe that the Cowboy State could have a significant impact on the final result of the 2024 presidential election because of errors made while testing some of the state’s election machines.
This comes even as Wyoming is almost a lock to vote predominantly for former President Donald Trump in the general election.
Brian Shuck, legal counsel for the Wyoming GOP, expressed concerns at the party’s Central Committee meeting in Douglas on Saturday based on some clerical errors made during the 23 Wyoming county’s mandatory test of election machine equipment throughout the state last month.
The worry is because of the faulty tests, Wyoming’s electoral votes could be disqualified.
“I think we have to take seriously the fact that could be a possibility,” Shuck said. “That is part of why we take this so seriously and why we put the time and effort into this. Those of us in Wyoming who gave President Trump over 70% of vote want to make sure those three electoral votes are counted.”
At the Laramie County test, controversy arose over the fact that many of the candidates were given the exact same number of votes for the machines to count.
Although the machines performed the tests as expected, this was an infraction of the rules. Wyoming Statute 22-11-104 says that during these tests, a different number of valid votes shall be assigned to each candidate for an office, for and against each measure.
It’s important this test is performed correctly as it ensures that when equipment is counting votes, it’s accurately counting the way ballots are marked.
Most other counties made the same mistake and at least 16 directly worked with the state GOP to perform new tests.
“Kudos to those clerks who took it seriously and did a good job to test their machines,” Shuck said.
The Wyoming GOP filed a lawsuit against Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee over the issue, which resulted in a settlement shortly after Lee agreed to comply with the state party’s demands for a new test.
Laramie County GOP Committeeman Dallas Tyrrell said Lee has already failed to meet a few deadlines established in the settlement agreement.
On Saturday, the state GOP voted to censure Lee for the way she has handled the situation, which accuses her of breaking the law and misrepresenting facts. The censure passed unanimously with little debate.
Lee declined to comment on the censure when reached by Cowboy State Daily on Friday and asked about the possibility of the party taking that action.
“I’m focused on getting my job done,” she said. “I’ve got a lot to do.”
Besides the faulty tests, there were no instances of alleged fraud documented in Wyoming's primary election, nor has there been in any recent years.
Analyzing the 2022 testing results, Shuck said he hasn’t found a county that didn’t commit the same infraction.
Decertification Concerns
Shuck said South Dakota resident Rick Weible provided valuable consulting over a two-week period on testing vote tabulators in Wyoming. Weible believes the tabulator retests that happened in Wyoming were the first time in American history that clerks were asked to retest tabulators by the public and actually did so.
Shuck said Secretary of State Chuck Gray was helpful throughout the process.
Weible, who was at Saturday’s meeting, has rejected the results of the 2020 election and led efforts in South Dakota for the public release of cast vote records and proof that tabulating machines are not connected to the internet during voting through his group Midwest Swamp Watch.
On Saturday, Weible gave a presentation on why he believes voting machines can’t be trusted. Still, he thinks Wyoming has one of the strongest election codes in the country because it holds county clerks criminally liable for infractions and its tabulator test requirements.
Weible told Cowboy State Daily that there is cause for concern in the upcoming election because Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris has hired lawyers associated with Perkins Coie for her campaign. This firm has led voter access expansion and election contest efforts throughout the country.
“I believe your three electoral votes are at risk,” he said.
Douglas resident Dave Jones, who works in IT, believes Weible's presentation lacked context and failed to prove definitive shortcomings in the tabulator technology based on his knowledge of how it is used.
"Everyone is getting riled up by what they're seeing here, but there's not a lot of real problems they can point to," he said.
Wyoming voted for Trump by a larger margin than any other state in 2020 and 2016, and the state is not expected to vote significantly differently in the upcoming election.
But Weible believes Democrats could target red states like Wyoming that may have committed election infractions if Trump wins the election as an attempt to disqualify their electoral votes.
The Issue Continues
Shuck said the Wyoming GOP has already spent $22,000 on its lawsuit in Laramie County.
He expressed multiple times Saturday that the Wyoming GOP is going to continue monitoring election machines into and including Election Day in November.
“It might be the most important one of our lifetimes,” Shuck said. “We absolutely have to get this election right.”
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
