CASPER — Four bills seeking to catch and prevent election botching in Wyoming are headed into the 2026 legislative session after the Management Audit Committee advanced them all Tuesday.
Meeting in Casper, the committee discussed the four bills in the context of the Weston County Clerk’s mishandling portions of the 2024 general election, which has been an ongoing political saga since last November.
Weston County Clerk Becky Hadlock did not appear for a Sept. 29 legislative meeting — to which she was subpoenaed — to explain her handling of the election.
If the Natrona County District Attorney’s Office prosecutes her and she’s convicted for failing to appear for the subpoena, she could face up to six months in jail and $100 in fines for that.
Now the Management Audit Committee is seeking a court order to make her appear at another meeting before the lawmaking session opens Feb. 9.
After the Legislature became involved in this issue, Hadlock has not returned any of the numerous Cowboy State Daily requests for comment.
The First Bill
The subcommittee tasked with investigating Hadlock recommended four bills to its parent committee, Management Audit, after the former’s Sept. 29 meeting.
The first bill committee members advanced Tuesday would increase the $100 potential maximum fine for defying a legislative subpoena to $750, which is a more common figure associated with six-month misdemeanors across state law.
The nine committee members present voted in favor of that.
Sens. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, and Troy McKeown, R-Gillette, were not present for the votes and were marked as excused for each.
Second Bill
The second bill would specify that submitting a false post-election audit to the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines.
Hadlock marked her 2024 post-election audit as having no issues, according to numerous public testimonies by Secretary of State Chuck Gray.
But around one-fourth of the ballots audited from her county had issues, meaning Hadlock either lied about the results or about conducting the audit, Gray has alleged.
“I do want to be very clear here, that I believe falsifying a post-election audit is already a felony,” said Gray, who added that he supports all four bills.
On the one hand, this bill could add specificity, but it could also elevate post-election audit filings to a seemingly more important caste of election law than other, just-as-important filings, he said.
Rep. Trey Sherwood, D-Laramie, voiced a concern about unintentional errors and asked what is the process for a person filing an audit to issue a correction.
Gray, rather than outline the process, detailed how his office pushed Hadlock for a correction “and she pushed back on that.”
If lawmakers want to “lay out a more formal procedure” than the one currently in statute, “I think that’s fine,” said Gray.
Just submitting a correction “doesn’t mean that the original one is totally legit and everything is fine,” he said, adding that, “the circumstances need to be considered.”
Third Bill
The third bill would layer transparency onto the post-election audit process, requiring the county clerk to notify the county chairman of each political party represented on the ballot, and a representative of all independent candidates of the time and place of the audit.
It would require two or more electors of that county, from different political parties, to attend and observe the audit and its results.
Joey Correnti, speaking in his capacity as a member of the Carbon County Canvassing Board, recommended adding a public notice requirement to the bill.
The committee rejected that recommendation, but adopted another of Correnti’s suggestions: an amendment requiring someone at the post-election audit proceeding to take meeting-style minutes, and requiring the clerk to file those minutes with the secretary of state.
Speaking for the Wyoming Association of County Clerks, Mary Lankford recommended a change requiring audit participants take an oath to preserve the constitutional right of secret ballot voting.
The committee adopted that amendment.
Fourth Bill
In Wyoming, electors of a county and/or the county commissioners may submit a complaint to the governor, asking the governor to remove a county official from office, state law says.
The fourth bill the committee advanced Tuesday would make the secretary of state a valid complainant when the alleged misconduct is an election offense.
Gray said he supports this bill, but worries the conversation around it will give the public the impression that the complaint he filed against Hadlock, with the governor's office, was irrelevant.
Gov. Mark Gordon investigated Hadlock this year and found that her actions did not rise to the level required by law to pursue her removal.
The governor’s decision letter did not reference Gray’s chief criticism against Hadlock of her post-election audit.
Gordon had to act only upon the claims of the electors of Weston County who filed complaints against Hadlock, under state law, his office has said.
Gray countered, telling the committee Tuesday that he believes the Weston County complainants’ insertion of the words “but not limited to” in their listing of Hadlock’s alleged misconduct should have given the governor a mechanism to probe the post-election audit issues.
“I don’t want in any way for there to be some sort of idea that we’re conceding that the current statute was deficient in addressing it, in the original complaint,” he said.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
