The Wyoming House advanced a bill on Monday that would allow for recounting elections by hand. House Bill 232 would initiate hand recounts for many races in Wyoming.
The bill was passed 6-1 by the House Appropriations Committee with only Rep. Trey Sherwood, D-Laramie, voting against it.
If enacted into law, the bill apportions $200,000 for the state to run, a figure Secretary of State Chuck Gray said he supports to facilitate hand-counted recounts.
“We truly have to have some mechanism for a hand recount under Wyoming state law outside of the canvassing board, and this will allow for that,” he said.
Hand counting elections has gained steam since the 2020 election after allegations of fraud were brought by some Republicans against voting machines. Various attempts to perform hand count elections and audits of elections have mostly failed to date.
HB 232 would not only perform election recounts conducted by hand instead of voting machines for close races, but also if an individual requests it.
The bill sponsor, Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, believes the bill will also provide an avenue for catching human mistakes fed into the voting machines that might not otherwise currently exist in state law.
That Recount In Weston County
A recount snafu that occurred in Weston County last fall was mentioned multiple times during testimony on Monday.
The miscount reported state Rep. Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, as having received just 15% of the votes cast for him in the House District 1 race even though he was running unopposed. Nearly all of the other 85% were marked as not voting in that race. The mistake was materially inconsequential as far as determining a winner of Neiman’s race, but it raised serious questions about how the county counts its ballots.
At the discretion of the local canvassing board, a hand counted recount was performed after with the correct results identified, which Gray said was the first hand count recount that had occurred in Wyoming in decades.
“That showed the machine count was indeed inaccurate,” Gray said.
What Gray leaves out is that it was determined that the local county clerk, not the machines, had mistakenly used ballots that had been printed out but shouldn’t have been used in the voting machines because of previously-identified errors on them.
“The machines did their job in Weston County,” said Fremont County Clerk Julie Freese. “The machine did do its job. Unfortunately, it didn’t do the job of making sure that the person the people were voting for was correct.”
Current Law
Currently, mandatory recounts are triggered on races decided by 1% or fewer votes in Wyoming.
Counting the Weston situation, there were two primary election Legislature recounts in 2024. If HB 232 had in effect, there would’ve been about seven recounts in the last election, Deputy Secretary of State Joe Rubino said.
Gail Symons, who runs Civics307 -- a voting rights advocacy group, said HB 232 is a solution in search of a problem. She believes hand counts are inaccurate, costly and a waste of time that could be alleviated by using voting machines.
A hand count demonstration performed in Campbell County last fall showed that a hand count of their election, the third largest in the state, would take hundreds of counters and cost up to $1.3 million.
Symons also believes efforts like hand counts are launched purposely to reduce confidence in elections and would reduce her confidence on a personal level if enacted in state law.
“The decrease in confidence in our election integrity needs to be addressed at every level,” she said.
A hand count was performed by the Park County GOP earlier this month for a replacement assessor in that county. The party’s election, which involved much fewer votes than the average Legislature race, resulted in multiple mistakes made by the county party.
What The Bill Does
The bill would require a hand recount for all races decided by 1% of the vote or fewer.
In many instances, Haroldson’s bill would also increase the bar for a mandatory recount of races decided within 2% or less.
For federal, state and legislative races covering multiple counties, only the counties in where the race was decided by less than 2% of the vote would be recounted.
There would still be a mandatory recount for entire races that are determined by 1% or less, and that recount would be performed by hand.
Recounts of local ballot initiatives would be triggered by a 2% margin or fewer.
County commission and lower races would also be recounted with a 2% or fewer margin, but only by election machines.
Haroldson pointed out that the number of votes cast in a particular race will often determine whether a recount is triggered.
Malcolm Ervin, president of the County Clerks’ of Wyoming and Platte County Clerk, successfully requested an amendment be added to the granting the clerks the ability to call for a recount of a race whenever they want, no matter the result of an election. He commended the bill for representing “a measured approach” to embarking hand count elections in Wyoming.
There are currently two other bills that have been drafted that would get rid of voting machines entirely in Wyoming elections.
A county canvassing board could also order a recount for an election where it appears there has been an irregularity in voting results, which can be performed by hand or voting machine.
For recounts requested for races determined by a margin larger than 2%, up to $1,000 would be charged to the applicant for a machine count, and up to $5,000 for a hand count, with final costs determined by the county clerk.
If the actual cost of conducting the recount exceeds $5,000, the county clerk may seek reimbursement of reasonable expenses from the secretary of state. Haroldson said he hasn’t seen any evidence that a machine-performed recount would exceed $5,000.
Haroldson said if the recount changes the result of an election, the applicant will be reimbursed for their fees.
No later than the day following an election, the secretary of state could require a recount of not more than one federal, statewide or legislative question or race as part of auditing process.
The secretary of state shall specify which precincts are to be recounted. This recount may be conducted by hand or by using electronic voting equipment as specified by the secretary of state.
Gray has been a major proponent for hand count elections, one of the few if not only secretary of state in the country to take this stance.
The bill would also push up Wyoming’s primary elections to the first Tuesday in August rather than third, in order to allow for a longer recount and certification process. Under the bill, the first recount would be allowed to take place a week later than what’s currently allowed.
Banning Medicaid And Medicare Cards To Vote
The House Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee passed a bill on Monday banning the use of Medicaid and Medicare cards for voter identification on an 8-1 vote.
The sponsor of the bill, Rep. Nina Webber, R-Cody, pointed out that these cards lack a photo element, which she finds to be a necessity of everyday life.
Tom Lacock, government relations director for Wyoming AARP, however pointed out that many people living in assisted living homes have no form of photo ID and rely on these cards to vote.
He proposed an amendment on Monday that would allow people with a “reasonable impediment” and no form of ID to vote provisionally. The committee did not take up the amendment.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
