A ballot initiative to lower residential property taxes by 50% in Wyoming has been signed, sealed and delivered.
Secretary of State Chuck Gray announced Friday that he’s certified a ballot petition titled “People’s Initiative to Limit Property Tax in Wyoming Through a Homeowner’s Property Exemption.” The initiative will go before the voters in the 2026 general election.
Significance
The Secretary of State’s office verified 30,251 valid signatures submitted by Wyoming Voter Initiatives to get the question on the ballot. It will be the first time since 1996 that an initiative will go before voters in Wyoming.
Initiatives differ from constitutional amendments, which are initiated by action of the state Legislature. The most recent amendment election was held in November to separate residential property out from other forms of taxed property in the state, which passed.
An initiative requires a certain number of voter’s signatures to qualify to get on a ballot, based on the turnout of the previous election.
Gray, who has previously indicated he supports the measure, said getting the initiative on the ballot represents a historic moment in Wyoming history.
“The people’s right to propose and enact laws by initiative to address fundamental issues, such as property tax limits, is pivotal to our state,” he said. “I look forward to putting forward to the people of Wyoming the choice of property tax limits in the upcoming election.”
Cody resident Brent Bien, the first candidate to announce for the 2026 Wyoming gubernatorial race, was one of the lead organizers behind the initiative.
“The credit goes to all the circulators and folks who signed the initiative across our great state,” Bien said.
Property taxes have been one of the biggest topics in Wyoming over the last few years and lawmakers seem poised to make it a priority again for the upcoming legislative session. A bill Gov. Mark Gordon vetoed in 2024 that would have exempted taxes by 25% for most residential properties has been listed as one of the biggest priorities for the session.
The citizen’s initiative, if approved by voters in 2026, would allow full-time homeowners in Wyoming to have their property taxed at 50% of its assessed value.
Wyoming Voter Initiative had a total of 315 volunteers collect signatures from 2023-2024 for their effort.
Past Hiccup
The group initially delivered 44,650 signatures to Gray last May, holding a public event for their delivery.
It was then revealed by Gray in July that nearly 16,000 of the signatures the group had submitted were invalid, leaving the effort about 1,000 signatures short of the threshold of 29,730.
The most signatures collected were in Laramie and Natrona counties.
Reasons for rejections, Gray said at the time, included 4,856 voter registration addresses not matching addresses listed on the petition and similar discrepancies; 587 signatures that fell outside the date sequence of the petition circulation; 36 that had illegible writing; 78 ineligible P.O. boxes; 1,080 duplicate and 37 triplicate signatures; 381 questionable signatures; and 4,246 signatures from people who were not registered to vote.
After this announcement, the group went back to collecting names and submitted the additional signatures on Nov. 4, long before the April 2025 deadline to get on the 2026 ballot.
They also resubmitted a number of signatures that were accepted on the second go-round, while six of the petition packets originally rejected by Gray’s office were again rejected for a second time.
What’s Next?
The initiative will not only need a majority of votes to pass into law but also a majority of the votes cast in the election.
That secondary hurdle is what prevented the last initiatives pertaining to term limits from passing into law.
There’s also a possibility that by the time the initiative goes before the voters in 2026, a law enacting a 50% reduction will already be in effect. There will be two more legislative sessions before the voters take action on the issue.
The property tax division of the Wyoming Department of Revenue estimated in 2023 that the initiative, titled “People's Initiative to Limit Property Tax in Wyoming Through a Homeowner's Property Exemption,” would cause a $143 million hit to total revenue statewide in its first tax year and $147 million by its second.
If passed, homeowners would still have to apply to receive the 50% assessment as it would only apply to people who have lived in the state for at least a year and have Wyoming as their primary residence for at least six months of the year.
The state Department of Revenue has estimated this would lead to about 175,000 applications statewide, which would be fielded by local assessor offices.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
