Secretary of State Gray to Wyoming Legislature: Pass election reform

CHEYENNE—When Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray reflects on his time as a legislator, his memories evoke David and Goliath. 

In the light of a twinkling Christmas tree in the Wyoming Capitol rotunda, Gray recalled the experience of looking at a “conservative bill” as a lawmaker and knowing no more than half a dozen of his House colleagues would support it. 

“It’s totally different now,” Gray said at a Thursday press conference. “I mean, there’s been a huge change.”

Indeed, when the Wyoming Legislature convenes in January, a new group of Republicans will be in charge — the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. The group racked up enough wins in 2024’s primary and general elections to secure a simple majority in the House, wresting control from longtime, traditionalist Republicans. 

Now, Gray said he can rely on “probably 35 votes at least” in the 62-member House. 

“We have a moment of opportunity to take action on conservative reforms that the people of Wyoming have been asking for for decades,” Gray said. 

Thursday, he laid out plans to count on the new Legislature to pass a bevy of election-related measures: banning drop boxes, prohibiting private funding of elections and requiring proof of residency and citizenship to register to vote, among other things. He also called for upping voter identification requirements and codifying hand recounts. 

Rep. Chris Knapp (R-Gillette), a Freedom Caucus member who also spoke at the press conference, noted where some of Gray’s legislative priorities may face opposition. 

“All our eyes are on the Senate, all eyes are on the governorship,” said Knapp, who will chair the House Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee, which typically handles election-related legislation. 

While the overall makeup of the Senate changed very little in the 2024 election, the Freedom Caucus has heartburn over the upper chamber’s recent committee assignments. In a statement posted to Facebook, the group called the majority of the upper chamber committee chairs “Liz Cheney Republicans.”

Senate Corporations Committee Chairman Cale Case (R-Lander), who has at times clashed with Gray, told WyoFile on Wednesday he looked “forward to having the bills in my committee, and they’ll absolutely get fair hearings.”

But Case also expressed skepticism about the value of such legislation “since I don’t perceive a problem in any of these areas, exactly. In fact, I don’t think there is one.”

There have been four instances of voter fraud convictions in Wyoming in the past 42 years, according to a database created by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Gray, meanwhile, kept an optimistic tone on Thursday, encouraging new lawmakers “to not get discouraged and to not think about all the roadblocks.

“Because you have to take things one at a time as you go through the process, and take each step as you go through.”

The exact details of the legislation — including sponsors — remain to be seen as none had been posted to the Wyoming Legislature’s website by press time. (They will likely be posted in the coming weeks ahead of the session.) Gray, however, gave a broad outline of what bills he’d like to see while Rep. Knapp and Cheyenne Reps.-elect Steve Johnson and Gary Brown, both Republicans, expressed an eagerness at the press conference to support such legislation. 

The general session begins Jan. 14. 

Proof of residency and citizenship

“First and foremost, only Wyoming citizens should be voting in Wyoming elections, period,” Gray said. “And this requires proof of residency and proof of citizenship at the time of registration.”

Under current regulations, residents are required to provide proof of identity when registering to vote in Wyoming. Earlier this year, Gray proposed via an executive rulemaking process — separate from the legislative process — that proof of residency also be required. 

Citing a recommendation of the Legislative Service Office and Management Council, Gov. Mark Gordon rejected the rules on the basis that Gray’s proposal went outside the scope of the secretary’s statutory authority. 

“This should come as no surprise, but I’m also requesting that the Legislature take immediate action to explicitly ban ballot drop boxes,” Gray said at the press conference. 

Drop boxes, ballots and ‘Zuck bucks’

In June, Gray urged local election officials to ditch drop boxes ahead of absentee voting, calling them illegal under state law. 

“I do not believe drop boxes represent a safe, secure, or statutory basis for absentee voting,” Gray, (emphasis his), wrote in a letter to county clerks. “For this reason, they should not be used in the 2024 Election and beyond.” 

The seven counties that provided ballot drop boxes in 2022 did so again this year, rebuffing Gray. Park and Sheridan counties, meanwhile, did not provide ballot drop boxes this year, but both clerks told WyoFile in July their decisions were not due to Gray’s request. 

Several counties have used ballot drop boxes for years, long before the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election, when their use became controversial — largely thanks to the debunked film “2,000 Mules,” whose distributor apologized in May and pulled it from its platforms. 

The film also alleged that rampant “ballot harvesting,” or collecting completed absentee ballots from voters and delivering them to polling places or election offices, in swing states stole the 2020 election from then President Donald Trump. 

“I believe Wyoming must take action to ban ballot harvesting and ensure that no ballot harvesting occurs in Wyoming,” Gray said. 

Wyoming law does not currently prohibit private funding of elections, but Gray said it needs to in order to prevent “Zuck bucks,” in reference to billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s election-related charity in 2020.

Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan provided $400 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life to be distributed to election offices across the country. None of those funds ended up in Wyoming, according to Capital Research Center, a conservative think-tank. 

Gray said he was “deeply disturbed” by the presence of the Center for Tech and Civic Life at the Wyoming Association of County Officers meeting in Rock Springs in September. 

Twenty-eight states have banned or restricted private funds for elections, according to Governing, a news outlet.

Voter ID and hand-count audits 

As a lawmaker, Gray was the main sponsor of the 2021 voter identification bill. Now, he’d like to see it beefed up. 

More specifically, Gray said he wants to do away with IDs that do not include a photograph. That would effectively prohibit Medicare and Medicaid insurance cards that are currently permitted. 

Lastly, Gray said he wants to see “legislative action to have hand verification of voting machines in Wyoming” in light of a miscount in Weston County in the general election. 

That issue was resolved via a hand-count — but not without the secretary of state’s office intervening. 

Weston County Clerk Becky Hadlock printed three versions of the ballot due to errors on the first two. That’s not unusual for clerks to do, but it became a problem when some voters were given the first and second versions. As a result, tabulators miscounted votes in a county commission race as well as House District 1, where House Speaker-elect Rep. Chip Neiman (R-Hulett) was running unopposed. 

The initial, unofficial results for Weston County showed Neiman received 166 votes while 1,289 left that part of the ballot blank, also known as an undervote. That count caught Gray’s attention on election night, he said at the state canvassing board meeting last month. When Hadlock didn’t answer his calls that evening, he sent the sheriff’s office to her home. 

Hadlock initially denied there was an issue, Gray said, but ultimately agreed to the secretary’s request that her office complete a hand tabulation of the ballots, which “confirmed the Weston County Clerk’s mistake.”

The recount revealed that Neiman received 1,269 votes, and the results were certified by both the county and state canvassing boards. 

“One solution we’ve been exploring is in both the mandatory recount provisions as well as recounts conducted at the request of candidates by hand to ensure the power is restored to the people,” Gray said Thursday. 

At the state canvassing board meeting, Gray said his office was planning a “more full analysis evaluating [the clerk’s] conduct” to present to the Attorney General’s office. 

Asked by WyoFile whether there was an update on the matter, Gray said “stay tuned.”