Board certifies Wyoming’s election results without fanfare after tumultuous primary season

CHEYENNE—A routine post-election audit of Wyoming’s 2024 primary results provided “no findings or observations,” the Wyoming Secretary of State’s office reported Wednesday.

“I want to take this opportunity to say this was a great election,” Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray said Wednesday at the state canvassing board meeting.

The board met, as is required by state law, to certify the results of the election. And it did so largely without drama — a stark contrast to the last several months in Wyoming, which featured negative campaigning, controversial mailers, expensive races, a last-minute kerfuffle over voting machines, at least two election-related lawsuits and one censure of a county clerk.

The board — consisting of Gray, Gov. Mark Gordon, State Treasurer Curt Meier and State Auditor Kristi Racines — voted unanimously to certify the results. It also certified three write-in Democratic candidates for the statehouse. That included Larry Allwyn in House District 28, Martha Wright in House District 29, and Carmen Whitehead in House District 60.

“I want to thank the county clerks, election judges, poll watchers and other volunteers that made the 2024 primary election a success,” Gray said.

In addition to his take, Gray invited public comment from those in-person and online on three occasions throughout the meeting. Malcolm Ervin, Platte County clerk and president of the Wyoming County Clerks’ Association, was one of four to speak up.

“On Election Day, it’s an effort to manage small hiccups,” Ervin said, addressing Gray. “So I want to thank you and your office for being so accessible. Not just on Election Day, but leading up to it. It really does help us quite a bit, and it’s a big effort, and we appreciate all of the assistance.”

Details

CJ Young, the elections division director for the secretary of state’s office, told the board there were two Election Day incidents that were resolved but were worth noting.

One was in Sweetwater County, where a backup tabulator had to be used after another jammed, initially causing three ballots to be double-casted. In Lincoln County, ballots had to be retabulated after an election judge prematurely removed a media stick during the machine’s closing process.

Both incidents were resolved on election night.

“I want to point out these moments to highlight that whenever issues arise, we’re committed to addressing them,” Young said. “There are contingency plans in place for election incidents, and we have trainings and exercises around the year to prepare these staff for these difficult situations.”

Young reassured the board that concerns leading up to Election Day — including election equipment testing — were straightened out. The Wyoming GOP had sent out multiple “election integrity” alerts ahead of the primary after routine testing of voting machines in several counties failed to follow state statute . The state party also sued Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee over a faulty test in her jurisdiction .

“When this issue was identified, it was immediately communicated to the county clerks who subsequently retested their equipment in accordance with Wyoming law,” Young said.

One voter at the meeting, however, remained concerned about the state’s tabulating machines.

“From where I stand it looks fishy,” Susan Graham, a Laramie County resident, said.

The state GOP also remains dubious. Its state executive committee voted earlier this week to censure Lee. The reprimand is largely symbolic and lacks any material punishment such as removal from office or loss of authority. The Wyoming GOP has censured other Republican leaders before including Gov. Mark Gordon earlier this year .

While the primary yielded the lowest voter turnout since 2016, Young said that was to be expected since the top five state offices were not up for reelection. Turnout was also unusually high in the 2022 primary, which featured a congressional race between Liz Cheney and Harriet Hageman that drew international attention to Wyoming, making this year’s decline more pronounced.

A WyoFile analysis of past primary elections without a gubernatorial race shows similar turnout figures to 2024. About 27% of voting-age people in

Wyoming turned out for this year’s primary, according to figures from the secretary of state’s office and the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s comparable to the last three non-pandemic primary elections (2016 – 25.6%, 2012 – 25%, 2008 – 26.5%) that did not feature a governor’s race.

The election was the first since the Legislature shortened the absentee voting period and placed restrictions on how voters can affiliate with a political party.

Gray referred to both as “election integrity reform,” a characterization that Marissa Carpio of the Equality State Policy Center pushed back on during the meeting.

“Calling new laws like the [party affiliation] deadline and shortening the absentee period ‘election integrity reforms’ is disingenuous,” Carpio told the board over Zoom. “These measures were voter suppression tactics, and the extremely low voter turnout in the primary election confirms that.”

At the meeting, Gray cited two factors for the turnout decline.

One is the fact that we have an election integrity measure that stopped one party from going into another party’s primary, the ban on crossover voting,” he said. “And I then, I think a lot of the biased media coverage did, one- sided media coverage, did affect turnout in a number of different respects.”

The general election is Nov. 5.

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