Public records provided to Cowboy State Daily show that none of the 16 separate election complaints referred to Wyoming Attorney General Bridget Hill’s office for prosecution in 2024 by the Secretary of State’s Office have resulted in prosecution.
According to an “Election Complaint Tracker” sheet provided as a result of a public records request made by the Cowboy State Politics podcast and provided to Cowboy State Daily, Hill has yet to take prosecutorial action on any of the 16 cases referred to her by Secretary of State Chuck Gray’s office.
Gray told Cowboy State Daily that not only has Hill taken no action on any of the complaints, she’s also failed to keep him apprised on the status of any of the cases.
“This has also been deeply troubling,” Gray said.
Hill confirmed to Cowboy State Daily that no charges have been filed in any of these cases, but her office is still actively investigating eight of them, while also recognizing some of the cases are related to the same topic.
Are They Legit?
The 16 complaints forwarded to Hill’s office cover a range of allegations, including campaign advertisement violations, campaign finance violations, failure to file campaign finance reports on time, electioneering too close to polling places, improper use of legislative logos on campaign materials and campaign materials sent out by unregistered political groups.
Hill said her office decided to not press charges in the other matters for three reasons.
• Hill and her staff do not believe there is substantial evidence to meet a burden of proof because the penalty for violations of matters forwarded to my office is a criminal misdemeanor, thus they carry a beyond a reasonable doubt burden.
• The AG’s office does not believe the actions complained of rise to the level of a violation of the statutes or were of a nature to warrant prosecution.
• There was not enough evidence to conduct an investigation.
Hill added that some of the complaints regarding electioneering did not identify the person engaged in alleged electioneering or failed to provide sufficient information to determine that electioneering occurred. She also said electioneering at a polling place is not simply attributable to the candidate or campaign the guilty party was advocating for.
The number of cases the Secretary of State’s office is forwarding to the AG may be the real story. Gray has taken a hardline approach to election reform, seeking to employ a wide variety of heightened restrictions that he believes will close vulnerabilities in Wyoming’s elections systems.
Another 27 complaints are still under review by his office and referred to local-level attorneys for prosecution were deemed not eligible for prosecution or were resolved.
Kai Schon, a former election director of the Secretary of State’s office for seven years, told Cowboy State Daily that when he was with the office, about five or six complaints were forwarded to the AG’s office per election year.
Some of these cases that got prosecuted included campaign advertising by unregistered political groups and candidates who had their Wyoming residency questioned.
Gray said his office takes election code complaints “very seriously” and gives “serious consideration” to every complaint filed with his office. If it’s believed a complaint has merit, it’s referred to the appropriate prosecuting authority.
Weston County Clerk
Another case handed over to the governor’s office and Hill this spring was Gray’s recommendation that the Weston County clerk be removed from office for mistakes she made during the 2024 election.
Gray believes the clerk, Becky Hadlock, violated the election code by either failing to perform an election audit, or purposely submitting false information from the audit.
“That is why we made the recommendation that we did,” Gray said.
Similarly, Gray said there’s been no prosecutorial action from the governor or Hill on this matter.
The governor already opened up his own investigation into the clerk in late 2024. When Gray submitted his thoughts on the matter early last month, Gordon responded that Gray “likes to make a lot of noise.”
“I hope that the governor takes this matter as seriously as I do,” Gray said. “Unfortunately, Gordon’s suggestion that the findings in our investigation were a ‘lot of noise’ was deeply troubling.”
Gray and the governor have sparred over a laundry list of issues since Gray took office in 2022, including election security. Gordon has at times accused Gray of trying to assert authority he doesn’t have and support bills that aren’t necessary when considering the very low rate of election fraud in Wyoming.
In response, Gray said Gordon has a “dismissive, flippant attitude regarding election integrity,” and the measures Gray has pushed for.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
