Secretary of State Chuck Gray and the Wyoming Freedom Caucus say they aren’t done pushing reforms to improve election integrity, above the raft of new laws that went into effect July 1.
Wyoming has already passed landmark reforms for election integrity, but more needs to be done, Gray told Cowboy State Daily on Monday.
Gray said his office sent nearly 20 proposed reforms to the Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee in May.
He said one of the proposed reforms includes eliminating electronic voting machines in favor of pen-and-paper ballots.
Pen-and-paper ballots are a “common-sense election integrity measure” that fit the requirements of President Donald Trump’s executive order on elections, Gray said.
Gray’s other proposals include banning ballot drop-boxes, mandating the use of photo identification to vote andstrengthening how the state’s voting systems are tested prior to elections.
State Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, the only Democrat on the Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee, told Cowboy State Daily on Monday that he’d like to see Wyoming move to a jungle primary system.
In a jungle primary, all candidates for a particular office run in one primary and the top two finishers move on to the general election, regardless of political party.
California and Washington use a jungle primary system. Alaska’s voting system includes a jungle primary, but the top-four candidates move on to the general election in that state’s ranked choice voting system.
“The Republican Party has repeatedly said they are a private organization and, if they don’t want to be governed by the election code, we should take them out of it,” Yin said Monday.
Gray said jungle primaries haven’t worked in “far-left” states like California and Washington.
“It’s concerning that Democrat state legislators like Representative Yin want to bring this confusing system to Wyoming,” Gray said. “The jungle primary system is confusing and not transparent. I believe we should stick with the traditional primary process.”
Higher Threshold
To get election laws changed in next year’s session would require a two-thirds vote of both the Wyoming Senate and the House of Representatives because it’s a budget year.
There’s a lot of strong enthusiasm for more election reforms in the Wyoming House, said Senate Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivision Chairman Cale Case, R-Lander.
“If they have the votes, it's possible there could be some legislation … come out of the committee,” Case said. “It would have a chance of passage. The introductory vote in the House, perhaps more than the Senate.”
Case said he believes proposals supported by the Wyoming Freedom Caucus could reach that level of support, but saidhe’s not really in favor of more changes to the state’s election laws.
“I'm hoping there won't be a lot of changes this year,” Case said. “We just kind of stand pat and understand what we've done and maybe even think about what are the downsides of what we’ve done.”
What’s New?
The newly effective laws include mandating voters prove citizenship and residency to register to vote, updated maintenance of the state’s voter rolls, a ban on ranked-choice voting and prohibitions of funding of ballot measures by foreign entities and the private funding of an election.
Gray also signed an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to allow the use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements [SAVE] database to continue to update the state’s system.
Case said he’d like to hear from the state’s 23 county clerks, who are tasked with carrying out the state’s election laws. He said his personal feelings would not affect the legislation that comes before the committee.
“It'll be a fair hearing and process there,” he said.
Gray said he looks forward to discussing the new election proposals at the committee’s Aug. 14-15 meeting.
Matthew Christian can be reached at matthew@cowboystatedaily.com.
