CHEYENNE — If Secretary of State Chuck Gray gets his way, ballot drop boxes will be no more in Wyoming after the upcoming legislative session.
During a press conference held at the Wyoming Capitol on Thursday, Gray said he will push for legislation banning the boxes during the upcoming session.
“I remain convinced that the use of unstaffed and unattended ballot drop boxes is not best for our state and lacks statutory authorization,” he said.
Since Gray isn’t a member of the Legislature anymore, he’ll have to rely on legislators to help shepherd through his priorities for 2025, which he highlighted in the press conference. Many focus on election security.
With the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and similarly aligned conservative lawmakers taking over a majority of seats in the state House this year, Gray will have a better chance than ever to get his legislative priorities accomplished. He said he expects at least 35 votes in support of his priorities in the House.
“It’s totally different now,” he said. “There’s been a huge change.”
Where Gray’s efforts may see more pushback is in the Senate, where more moderate Republicans hold more seats.
Ballot Drop Boxes
Ballot drop boxes are boxes located outside county courthouses that provide voters an opportunity to drop off their ballots 24/7 without having to enter the building. They are almost always under video surveillance.
Ballot drop boxes became a highly controversial topic nationwide after the 2020 election, when they were employed in significant numbers often as a response to COVID-19 concerns. Many Republicans have levied accusations that they served as a breeding ground for fraud and ballot harvesting that prevented President-elect Donald Trump from winning the 2020 campaign.
Similarly, Gray made the boxes a particular focus of his 2022 secretary of state campaign, sowing seeds of doubt about the security of Wyoming’s elections along the way.
During his campaign, Gray hosted free showings of “2000 Mules,” a movie that relied on unsubstantiated claims and faulty analysis to assert that ballot boxes were stuffed in key battleground states during the 2020 presidential election.
The absentee ballot boxes were formally addressed in Wyoming in 2020 as a COVID-19 pandemic measure, but Platte County Clerk Malcolm Ervin, president of the County Clerks’ Association of Wyoming, said they had existed for many election cycles previous and with less regulation.
Wyoming statutes state that each qualified elector shall have their ballots mailed or “delivered to the clerk” in their county, but make no closer references than that. Former Secretary of State Ed Buchanan determined in 2020 that state law saying a ballot must be “delivered to the clerk” encompassed the use of a drop box that was at or near an office or county courthouse. Ballot drop boxes aren’t specifically addressed anywhere in state law.
Gray disagrees with that interpretation.
“You can’t deliver something to an inanimate object,” Gray said.
Wyoming’s county clerks have disagreed with Gray in the past that ballot drop boxes are already illegal under state law, but Ervin said they will take no position on banning them in the future.
“If it’s the will of the voters to keep these, they’ll need to let their legislators know,” Ervin told Cowboy State Daily.
In Wyoming, seven counties offered ballot drop boxes this election cycle. This is two fewer than what was offered in the past, with Sheridan and Park counties discontinuing their boxes.
In Park County, the clerk said they chose to not continue the box due to ongoing construction in the county courthouse parking lot in Cody. In Sheridan, the box was removed because of what the clerk saw as ambiguity in Wyoming’s laws regarding drop boxes.
Gray also wants to address ballot harvesting and the use of private money to fund election operations in Wyoming.
State Rep.-elect Steve Johnson, R-Cheyenne, said during the press conference he plans to bring a bill to address ballot harvesting.
A long line of people waiting to vote early in late October 2024 at the Laramie County Clerk's Office in Cheyenne. There's also a ballot drop box prominently placed in front of the building. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily) 
Secretary of State Chuck Gray speaks at his press conference Dec. 19, 2024, to announce legislative priorities for election integrity in 2025. (Matt Idler for Cowboy State Daily) 
State Rep. Chris Knapp, R-Gillette, speaks at a press conference to announce election integrity priorities on Dec. 19, 2024. (Matt Idler for Cowboy State Daily)
Other Election Security Bills
Gray also plans to support a bill requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in Wyoming. He said Wyoming would become the first state in the nation to pass that requirement for both federal, state and local elections.
This has become a favorite talking point for Republicans around the nation even as research shows noncitizens illegally registering and casting ballots in federal elections is rare and typically by mistake. It’s already a felony for noncitizens to register to vote in federal elections, punishable by fines, prison or deportation. Anyone registering must attest under penalty of perjury that they are a U.S. citizen.
“I believe Wyoming can and should require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship for every new registrant to vote in all Wyoming elections,” Gray said. “This would make Wyoming a leader in the election integrity space and further cement our place as a leader in the election integrity space.”
He also wants to require proof of Wyoming residency to vote in Wyoming.
“Only Wyoming citizens should be voting in Wyoming elections, period,” Gray said.
Wyoming law does not require proof of residency or citizenship at the time of voter registration beyond a sworn affidavit, but it does require the last four digits of a Social Security number if a voter does not have a state-issued resident driver’s license, which does require proof of residency and citizenship to get.
Rules created by Gray’s office earlier this year to establish tighter residency requirements were vetoed by Gov. Mark Gordon, who said they exceeded Gray’s authority.
Gray also wants to enact a requirement that a photo ID be used for all voter identifications. In 2021, Gray helped pass legislation establishing tighter voter ID requirements.
Gray said that the bill still left some loopholes that allow people to vote in certain circumstances without showing a photo ID but using other forms of verification.
He also wants the Legislature to address “voter list hygiene” by performing more frequent removal of voters from the state’s registered voter lists, and state-level hand count audits of voting results, which can already be initiated on a county level.
Securing Elections Vs. Suppressing Voters
When asked by Cowboy State Daily how he’ll ensure that legal voters are still able to easily vote in Wyoming, Gray was scant on details, but said his office will try to seek “a balance” between creating new restrictions and continuing voter access.
“We have to make sure we achieve that balance,” Gray said. “Other states have done all of these things, and it has worked.”
Rep. Chris Knapp, R-Gillette, agreed and said the right to vote can’t be ensured without making sure it's legal and has been counted.
Mandatory audits are already performed after each election cycle in Wyoming, but Republicans like Gray and Knapp want them to be more expansive and done by hand.
Since the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee didn’t address any election-related topics this interim session, it will be up to individual lawmakers to champion and sponsor Gray’s goals.
Knapp, who has been nominated chair of the House Corporations Committee, told Cowboy State Daily he expects 25-30 bills this session related to Gray’s agenda. Knapp said he and a wide consortium of lawmakers will bring this legislation, most of which he will be in charge of managing as chair of the Corporations Committee.
Other Topics
Gray is also supporting legislation sponsored by the Corporations Committee that would prevent foreign adversaries or people working on behalf of them from owning limited liability companies in Wyoming.
Gray also said he wants to see bans on sanctuary cities, legislation Rep.-elect Joel Guggenmos, R-Riverton, said he’ll bring, and substantial property tax reform.
On Tuesday, Gray hosted Wyoming’s presidential electors, who officially cast the state’s three electoral votes for Trump.
During that event Gray referred to Trump as “the second George Washington,” and at Thursday’s press conference referred to his upcoming presidency as “Trump time.”
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
