Openly partisan lawfare against common-sense election laws was bound to hit Wyoming, eventually. It’s been going on at least since Al Franken, comedian-turned-politician, took election denialism to a new level.
Running for the Minnesota senate seat in 2008, Franken denied his election night loss and launched the longest and most tortuous recount in American history.
For over eight months, America watched helplessly as Beltway lawyers litigated his highly questionable victory.
Marc Elias led that team of D.C. lawyers, which launched his career as election denier extraordinaire.
He has since meddled in dozens of state and federal elections to skew results and thwart the will of the people.
Skewing elections is not rocket science. From Tammany Hall to modern shenanigans, the recipe remains the same: allow ballots from ineligible voters and ignore election integrity rules.
Elias does this with multi-million-dollar-lawfare designed to overwhelm the legal staff of states’ attorneys general. This is the dog-and-pony show that he is bringing to Wyoming.
True to form, the first page of his 48-page filing dismisses election integrity by putting it in scare quotes.
For Elias and his ilk, election laws are like border laws: You need them to placate the masses, but heaven forbid that you actually enforce them! That would make cheating harder.
In scores of cases, Elias has made it easier for illegal voters to vote by arguing that the equal application of law might, possibly impact those who couldn’t care less about the law.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity (DEI) policies demand that states allow anyone who can fog a mirror to vote, promising that you can always verify their qualifications later. But, by design, that “later” never comes.
You can thank the Equality State Policy Center (ESPC) for bringing Elias to the Cowboy State. It announced, last Friday, that it would serve as the Elias Group’s handmaid to overturn the will of Wyomingites.
The ESPC Coalition is a witch’s brew of big-moneyed, progressive, groups including Wyoming Equality and the Wyoming Education Association, among other green groups and labor unions.
The law that they are targeting is HB 156 Proof of voter residency-registration qualifications. More than 85% of Wyoming’s elected lawmakers voted in its favor.
They were responding to their constituents who appeared in record numbers to ask Secretary of State Chuck Gray to enforce our proof of residency law in the election rules.
In response to Governor Gordon’s veto of that rulemaking, Representative John Bear wrote HB 156 and brought it before the legislature.
Wyoming has long required documentary proof of residency to qualify voters. But, oddly, nobody has to show them unless a county clerk officially asks to see them.
Such unequal treatment of voters was remedied by HB 156.
Now, instead of discriminating against an arbitrary few, Wyoming applies its standards to every voter as a matter of course. This is true equality—not equity.
Not one single Wyoming voter is a plaintiff on ESPC’s lawsuit. HB 156 has not kept anyone from registering to vote in the state of Wyoming. Nor is it likely to—at least not as likely as overturning HB 156 could allow fraudulent voters.
That is the crux of the matter. The reason that elected legislators—and not unelected judges—make laws is because laws are always weighing benefits against possible downsides.
Life is complicated and people may not vote for a gazillion reasons. There are others who would swim through shark-infested waters to cast their vote. The job of lawmakers is to balance the interests of the people of Wyoming according to the Constitution.
Wyoming’s Constitution gives clear and simple guidance: “The legislature shall pass laws to secure the purity of elections, and guard against abuses of the elective franchise.”
Nowhere does the constitution say that the legislature, judges, or county clerks should compromise the security of elections in order to boost voter turnout.
In case that is not clear enough, the people of the State of Wyoming explicitly stated that they would rather let qualified voters blow their chance to vote than let unqualified voters destroy the purity of our elections.
We even put this directly into Art. 6, Section 13 of our Constitution: “No person qualified to be an elector of the State of Wyoming, shall be allowed to vote at any general or special election hereafter to be holden in the state, until he or she shall have registered as a voter according to law.”
The people of the state of Wyoming have been clear enough — both in the constitution and in HB 156. Governor Gordon has an overwhelming mandate to defend them from the lawfare of outside lobbyists and DC lawyers.
Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com.
