This week’s bombshell landed in Casper when Weston County Clerk Becky Hadlock blew off a subpoena to appear before the legislative subcommittee appointed to investigate the 2024 Weston County election.
She didn’t contest the legality of the subpoena. She didn’t appear before the committee and take the Fifth. She simply wrote them a letter claiming “a scheduling conflict.” For all we know, she might have had an appointment to get her nails done. She didn’t say.
Hadlock was subpoenaed by a subcommittee of the Management Audit Committee that was tasked with investigating alleged malfeasance and fraudulent reporting in Weston County’s 2024 General Election.
Hadlock is at the center of the investigation not because she violated a pile of election codes - which directly caused hundreds of voters to be disenfranchised. Rather, Hadlock is at the center because of what she did after that.
Required by law to perform a post-election audit, which would have exposed her misdemeanors, she filed a false report with the Secretary of State that would have forever buried the code violations and the disenfranchisement of Wyoming citizens.
That is the simple fact of the matter.
The “process” did not work. Once she made the felonious filing - and repeatedly insisted that it was correct - the process was complete. Under any other circumstances, the County Canvassing Board would have been forced to certify the results. And the massive disenfranchisement would have gone undetected.
But, in this case, the anomalies were so obvious and the voters so adamant that they accomplished what had never been done. With the dogged determination of Secretary of State Chuck Gray, the Weston County Canvassing Board managed, just barely, to exercise its broad, but unspecified authority to hand-recount the disputed ballots and overturn the machines' false results.
This should not have required a Herculean effort. But it did.
Even in the face of mounting evidence, both Hadlock and the Wyoming County Clerks Association (WCCA) fought to keep the Canvassing Board from looking at the ballots. And Hadlock’s false filing - which failed to report 21 separate instances of miscounted votes - was at the center of the obstruction.
Had the truth been reported from the outset - that the error rate was 14 million times the maximum allowable by federal law - would the WCCA have resisted common sense so strenuously? But, armed with a “100%” accuracy claim, they very nearly succeeded in obstructing the recount.
That’s what troubles me.
I thank those members of the Management Audit Committee who voted to investigate this matter. And I thank Chair Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (R-Cody), Senators Bob Ide (R-Casper) and Dan Larson (R-Powell), and Representatives Jayme Lien (R-Casper), for their diligence in asking serious questions.
Right up front, Chairman Rodrigues-Williams asked, “What authority in the statute does the [Wyoming County Clerks] Association have to authorize a hand count examination, if any?” Answer: none.
From the start, the Attorney General’s office agreed with Secretary Gray that only the County Canvassing Board has that authority. The WCCA is a lobbying group. State law nowhere gives it the authority to interfere in the election process. This incident demonstrates why.
Second, it is sad that Gov. Mark Gordon did not allow this to go to court. Despite what you may have heard, he never had the authority to remove Clerk Hadlock from office. Only a district judge and a proper trial could do that.
The governor’s only power is to refer Hadlock to the process. By failing to do even that, he waived the use of discovery and the Division of Criminal Investigation. Those tools could have provided invaluable information to Wyoming citizens and lawmakers about how to make elections more secure and transparent.
Thankfully, there are still two opportunities for the executive branch to enforce Wyoming law. Gray’s report still sits on the desk of the Weston County Attorney, Michael Stulken, and Attorney General, Keith Kautz. These men get another bite at the apple.
If Hadlock committed a felony by her November 6 false filing, removal from office is not the only remedy. Wyoming statute also provides for the attorney general to prosecute under the criminal code.
I feel bad for Hadlock. I really do. But our sympathy for someone who may have waded in over her head cannot be the only consideration. Our North Star must be the rule of law. If state officers do not face clear consequences for violating the law, this will happen again.
The way that Wyoming’s prosecutors and courts handle this case will either strengthen the rule of law or it will weaken it. Either way, it will never be the same.
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.
