Wyoming will now have some of the strictest voter identification laws in the country after Gov. Mark Gordon let a bill pass into law that requires proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in all elections the Cowboy State.
“It will ensure that we protect Wyoming elections and is also key in supporting President Trump’s pivotal work to have proof of citizenship for registering to vote with the SAVE Act at the federal level,” Secretary of State Chuck Gray said in a statement after the bill passed into law. “I am thrilled that the priorities of the people of Wyoming have won out.”
Although Gray didn’t sponsor the bill since he’s not a state legislator, he did testify for it extensively throughout the legislative process and made it clear it was one of his top priorities for the 2025 legislative session. His office drafted at least two election-related bills this session.
It makes Wyoming the first state in the nation to have such a wide-sweeping proof of citizenship requirement, in effect for elections at all levels — municipal through statewide and national elections.
Gordon Doesn’t Love It
Gordon let the bill pass into law without his signature Friday, expressing some reservations about House Enrolled Act 57. He mentioned how the law now allows for the same agency rules Gray proposed for his office last year that Gordon vetoed.
“Because it is laudable to continuously improve our standards for identification, I am thrilled that this legislation now gives the Secretary of State the authority he was trying to usurp by passing rules he had no authority to pass last spring,” Gordon wrote in his letter on the bill. “The will of the Legislature is finally clear on this point.”
Gray championed HEA 57 and made it the first priority of his “conservative election integrity reform agenda.”
“The bill’s passage marks the turning point in a 2-year standoff with the governor on the important issue,” Gray said. “But I'm so glad that Gordon backed down in our standoff on this issue. With Gordon backing down in our standoff, the people of Wyoming won.
He believes the new law will tighten election security in Wyoming. There has been almost no election fraud identified within the Cowboy State.
“Only United States citizens, and only Wyomingites, should be voting in Wyoming elections. Period,” Gray said. “HB 156 makes Wyoming the first state in the nation to apply proof of citizenship for registering to vote for all elections.”
Gordon also expressed concern the new law will make it harder for bona fide Wyoming citizens to vote and lead to a lower turnout, a concern shared by Marissa Carpio of the Equality State Policy Center.
“How many people are going to get caught up in the web of disenfranchisement?” she questioned.
Marguerite Herman of the League of Women Voters of Wyoming also does not believe the law stops unqualified people from voting and argued that it increases fears about election security rather than reducing them.
“It does nothing to ensure election integrity,” she said. “Instead of trying to dispel fear about elections with facts, it (the law) might as well feed it.”
Around 45 election-related bills were brought during this year’s legislative session, with members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus mostly spearheading an effort to tighten the state’s election laws.
“How we balance the twin goals of encouraging participation and assuring that participation is limited to qualified electors, especially considering Wyoming’s already excellent track record with election integrity and security, is clearly the challenge with which the Wyoming Legislature and Secretary of State continue to wrestle,” Gordon writes. “How to conduct a clean, accurate, and heartily engaged election is every bit as important as it is to secure fair results themselves.”
The bill allows for most of the same forms of identification currently required to register to vote in Wyoming, including a Wyoming driver’s license or ID card, tribal ID cards, driver’s licenses issued in other states, a U.S. passport, birth certificate. But it becomes more ambiguous for instances where ID cards contain “any indication” to make an election judge believe the voter is not a U.S. citizen, which appears to disqualify the applicant voter from voting under the new law. Gordon worries that clerks may “err on the side of over-enforcement or under-enforcement” because of the new law.
“This standard may be difficult for clerks to administer, as it is unclear and perhaps awkward for our county clerks to consistently apply with any degree of certainty,” Gordon writes.
Trump's Order
Election reform has also been a stated priority for President Donald Trump, who signed a broad-ranging executive order Tuesday that requires all ballots be received by Election Day. That means mail-in ballots have to be in the proper election office by that day, not simply postmarked.
The order also targets U.S. citizenship, but doesn't go as far as Wyoming's new law. Trump's order mandates proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.
Residency Requirements
HEA 57 in many ways simply codifies already existing election practices in Wyoming, but it does put some new requirements on state residency, requiring 30 days of residency in Wyoming in order to vote in the state’s elections. Currently, there are no length of residency requirements in Wyoming.
Gordon believes this aspect of the law contradicts with the Wyoming Constitution and federal law.
Gray will now get to establish rules for voters to prove residency, but the law allows those rules to be circumvented with a signed attestation that they are bona fide resident of the state, an ironically low requirement when considering Gray has long trumpeted his belief that “election integrity is more than an attestation.”
Malcolm Ervin, president of the County Clerks’ Association of Wyoming and the Platte County Clerk, hopes that Gray’s rules match what was vetoed by Gordon, and Gray told Cowboy State Daily they will.
His proposed rules originally caused some consternation from Gordon and other voter participation groups in 2024, specifically over the issue of whether a P.O. Box listed on an ID may not qualify as proof of residence since it is not their home address. Gordon claimed in his letter there is “at least one high ranking member of the Wyoming Republican Party” who could be disenfranchised under that interpretation.
Gray ended up broadening the requirements to alleviate this concern and said the new rules will do so as well.
His new rules may not be released until around election season in 2026.
Litigation Risks
Gordon also expressed concern in his letter that the law “will invite litigation” over the durational requirement, and Herman said she’s heard “whispers of lawsuits” on the new law.
Federal law states that no legal voter should be denied from voting in U.S. presidential elections because of the durational residency requirements in any state. There are however at least seven states that have had a 30-day durational requirement to vote, which has been upheld in those places.
“Whether the federal or state statute will prevail in a legal contest is a question that will have to be resolved in court,” Gordon writes.
Gray said the 30-day requirement is modeled after Idaho’s similar requirement.
“While I'd like a stronger durational residency requirement, this is the strongest that has survived in the courts and was the strongest that was able to be brought through the legislature,” Gray said. “This issue needed to be addressed because without a durational residency requirement, someone could be in Wyoming 10 seconds and register to vote if they meet the other requirements of the registration process.”
Ervin said a lawsuit may not be able to be filed until someone is actually prevented from voting in an election because of the law.
Gray said clerks will now be directed to people who fail to meet the 30-day requirement to return to their state of origin to vote, which he said is the practice employed in Idaho. Ervin worries about the election judges who will have to deliver that message, likely often to people on Election Day who cannot quickly return to that state to vote.
“I’m concerned for the election judges who people may take out their animosity on,” he said.
The new law will go into effect July 1.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
