A Wyoming legislative committee on Monday voted to sponsor six election-integrity-oriented bills — in addition to the three it adopted in August, and the four another committee advanced last month.
The action doesn't make the bills law, but advances them to the 2026 lawmaking session.
A seventh bill was delayed for consideration to Tuesday morning because of an agenda mix-up.
Proponents of the six bills the legislative Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee adopted Monday said they’ll increase people’s ailing trust in elections.
Detractors said they’re more likely to heap more burdens and deadlines on the state’s county clerks, discourage eligible voters from the polls and, in some cases, conflict with other legislative maneuvers hurtling into the Legislature’s budget session that opens Feb. 9.
“In a moment of baring our soul a little bit, there is a lot of anxiety amongst county clerks about the number of bills that were passed in the last session and have the potential to pass in this session,” said Malcolm Ervin, president of the County Clerk’s Association of Wyoming and clerk of Platte County.
“Realistically, when these bills are being heard in the session, we’ll be in the first quarter of the football game,” he said. "And it’s hard to change those rules when the game’s underway. There’s a lot of statutory deadlines we’ll have already met. Some of them are looming in the coming weeks as the session ends.”
The anxiety stems from the quantity of bills, their scope, and some of their administrative impacts, he added.
Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Cheyenne, told the committee the bills are aimed at upholding a section of the Wyoming Constitution mandating efforts to keep elections pure.
Six Adoptees And One Orphan
With the approval of the committee members who were present, Sen. Cheri Steinmetz, R-Torrington, asked to table one of the seven bills the panel contemplated Monday, which would have shortened the timeline in which people could conduct in-person absentee voting.
Ervin said the clerks dislike changing the in-person absentee voting deadline so that it doesn’t track with the regular absentee voting deadline because it would be one more deadline to meet — and risk missing.
The six bills headed into the session propose the following:
• Requiring photo ID for in-person voter identification, and disallowing the use of student IDs and Medicaid and Medicare insurance cards as voter ID.
• Making unaffiliated or independent candidates for partisan political offices swear that they are unaffiliated with any party, making them give notice that they’re circulating a petition for nomination at least 81 days before the primary election, and increasing their petition signature threshold from 2% to 5% of the total number of votes cast for that office in the last general election.
• Requiring a hand count audit of ballots in one random precinct in each county within one week of the election.
• Imposing a poll-watchers’ bill of rights so that county clerks and election judges must accommodate poll watchers in a variety of ways.
• Multiplying the scenarios that would automatically trigger recounts.
• Clarifying the procedure for testing voting machines and electronic voting systems.
County Pays
The recount bill calls for hand-count recounts when the top-two candidate split in federal, statewide or legislative office is less than 2% within the county or when the top-two split is less than 1% in the entire state or district.
It also would trigger electronic recounts when other offices show a district-wide top-two split of less than 2%. That bill also specifies ways candidates, the secretary of state or county clerks could require recounts.
Secretary of State Chuck Gray had urged the committee to have the county pay for the added costs of recounts when those are automatically triggered. He said this maintains the status quo in law for triggered recounts.
Ultimately, the committee adopted that amendment.
But first, Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, countered, saying the increased triggers “are a different breed of cat, I think, than before.”
Steinmetz agreed, saying the amendment could be an unfunded mandate.
Property tax cuts may not be that dire even in the “hardship” counties she represents since land valuations are still significantly above pre-COVID levels, she said. But counties are still bracing for cuts and are looking at removing polling places.
“If this costs more than we’re anticipating, I’d hate for our counties to bear the brunt,” she said.
Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, had pressed Gray on how much the recounts would cost.
But Gray countered that, as with a lot of legislation affecting future processes, it’s still unclear.
Heart Of The Bill
Case attempted to introduce a carveout into the photo ID bill so that elderly or disabled people who don’t have valid driver’s licenses can make attestations and provide other information, like a utility bill or birth certificate, to vote.
That suggestion didn’t pass, though Case arranged for the bill title to be broadened so the Legislature could contemplate those carveouts during the session.
“Walk into a nursing home,” said Case, adding that a lot of people in there can’t go to the DMV, but are still eligible voters. “What are you going to do about it?”
Hardship exemptions like that would weaken the voter ID law, Gray countered. “(That’s) striking at the heart of the entire bill.”
Yin asked for — but did not win — an amendment to revive University of Wyoming and community college IDs as acceptable under the bill.
Rep. Gary Brown, R-Cheyenne, said that’s a problem since “a lot of students” at universities and colleges are from other states. “They may be voting in another state and voting here as well.”
Yin bristled at that: “Those are valid voters. You are eligible to vote because you’re a resident of Wyoming at that time. You gotta pick one — but those are valid voters and to say that we should disenfranchise them because they’re from out of state (is) not the right thing to do.”
Committee Co-Chair Christopher Knapp, R-Gillette, said student IDs aren’t up to the same standard as other IDs, evidenced by the fact that they’re not useful as many places as other government-issued IDs are.
So Afraid
The bill to add restrictions to independent candidates, Gray said, aims to prevent people from watching how the primary election ends and then throwing in a late bid with the benefit of that information.
It will level the playing field between independents and party candidates, said Gray.
Wyoming Republican Party Chair Bryan Miller agreed, saying the state’s current, more lenient approach to independent candidates is an equal protection hazard under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. constitution.
Case disagreed, calling Wyoming a “one-party state” and saying the party in power is merely trying to stomp out any lingering competition.
Independent legislators in Wyoming are rare. Republicans hold all five statewide elected offices, all three Congressional offices and a supermajority of the Legislature.
Yin, a formidable Democratic incumbent from a Democratic county, said Wyoming candidates should welcome the competition.
“This is the most rankling (bill of the day) because it says we’re scared,” he said. “It’s restricting access to the general ballot in a way that kind of says we’re afraid of competition.”
Gray approached the dais.
Apparently expecting Gray to counter Yin’s point, Case said, “Let’s not do this, let’s just vote. You’re not going to change anyone’s mind.”
As an executive branch official, Gray is not on the committee and may be excluded from the committee discussion.
But Gray was offering a slight change to the effective date of the bill.
Five. Minutes.
Another mild clash unfolded when Joey Correnti, member of the Carbon County canvassing board and a prominent political podcaster, testified on technical issues with the many bills.
Knapp cut Correnti off after five minutes, saying he had to hold Correnti to a time limit.
A later presenter, South Dakota election-integrity activist Rick Weible, was allowed to testify via virtual link for about 15 minutes after that.
Sen. Bill Landen, R-Casper, called out the discrepancy.
“We spent a little over 15 minutes on that particular testimony, and we limited a couple of our Wyoming folks,” said Landen. But with more than 20 people waiting, he said, and “15 minutes a shot, we’re going to be here until about 9 or 10 o’clock before we work the bills.”
“Well noted, thank you,” answered Knapp.
In a later text to Cowboy State Daily, Knapp said it was his fault if there were discrepancies, but it wasn’t on purpose.
He was trying to limit comment times due to the volume of bills, “but I wasn’t exact on my timer,” said Knapp, adding, “I talked to Joey afterwards and let him know.”
Correnti in his own comment to Cowboy State Daily said five minutes wasn’t an appropriate cap regardless.
“I understand the committee has limited time to do their work, but I’m still dismayed they expect the public to give comment on eight bills in five minutes,” he said.
Nobody Puts Baby In A … Chair
The bill known as the Poll Watchers’ Bill of Rights says county chairs of political parties shall certify poll watchers on election day to serve in polling places, and that county chairs that don’t have someone on the ballot “may” certify poll watchers.
There may be one poll watcher for each party, for each precinct served at a polling place.
That could add up to 96 poll watchers in one polling center, Fremont County Clerk Julie Freese said.
This and other provisions of the bill could get chaotic, bringing security concerns, chain-of-custody concerns and accommodation problems, she said.
The bill says poll watchers “shall be provided” chairs at polling places, but shall not be restricted to those chairs.
Sometimes even finding enough chairs in the chaos of election day is a challenge, added Freese.
Gray in his own testimony said Wyoming has had issues with poll watchers having to stand for 12 hours and not having to be offered chairs.
He said some counties won’t certify poll watchers, which is why the bill has language also expanding that ability to state party chairmen.
Wyoming is not as protective of its poll watchers as many other states, Gray added.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
