Wyoming’s crossover-voting ban, closed primary elections challenged in court

A group of Wyoming voters, former political candidates and a retired lawmaker are challenging several state election laws in a sweeping complaint filed in Laramie County District Court this month. 

Originally filed in August, the lawsuit initially sought to overturn the state’s prohibition on failed primary candidates appearing on the general election ballot as independents, known as a “sore loser law.” 

Now, the plaintiffs are also challenging the state’s closed primary election system and its limits on how and when Wyoming voters may affiliate with a political party, according to an amended complaint filed April 18. 

The laws violate the Wyoming Constitution’s guarantee of “political equality,” the plaintiffs argue, and “impermissibly discriminate against candidates and voters not affiliated with a major political party.” 

Among the plaintiffs are Matt Malcom of Laramie County and Jeff Thomas of Platte County. Both ran as Republicans for legislative seats but lost in the 2024 primary election. And state law prevented both from running as independent candidates in the general election. 

Jim Roscoe, a former independent lawmaker from Wilson, and Jim Rooks, a former Jackson Town Council member, are also plaintiffs in the case alongside Joshua Malcom, a registered voter of Laramie County, and Christina Kitchen, a registered voter of Teton County. 

The suit names Chuck Gray, in his capacity as secretary of state, as the defendant. Gray did not respond to WyoFile’s request for comment by press time. Previously, he said he supported the law prohibiting primary election runner-ups from running as independents in the general election.

“The statute is there for a good reason,” Gray told WyoFile last August.

How we got here

For decades, Wyoming had a partially open primary election system. That meant voters were restricted to casting ballots in races that aligned with their political party affiliation, which they were allowed to change on election day and during most of the early voting period.

The one time voters couldn’t change affiliation included the two weeks leading up to election day. Then in 2023, Wyoming lawmakers extended that period to 96 days leading up to the primary election in order to ban what’s known as crossover-voting. 

The new timeline lines up with the candidate filing period, requiring voters to affiliate with a party before the slate of candidates has been finalized. 

Supporters said the law was needed to stop registered Democrats, minor party and unaffiliated voters from changing their party affiliation in order to participate as Republicans in the primary election. 

They also pointed to the 2018 primary election when Gov. Mark Gordon secured the Republican nomination in the governor’s race. Gordon’s opponents said he was only able to win due to the support of “crossover” Democrats. Those claims were shown to be statistically unfounded, but endured nonetheless.

Plaintiffs 

The new party affiliation law prevented Joshua Malcom, one of the plaintiffs, from casting a vote for his brother, Matthew, in the 2024 primary election for House District 61.

Joshua is a Laramie County unaffiliated voter because he “does not wish to be a member of any political party,” according to the suit. As a result, however, Joshua could not cast a vote for his preferred candidate, his brother, because he is not a registered Republican. 

Joshua was further precluded from doing so when Matthew was not allowed to run as an independent candidate, the lawsuit states. 

Enacted in 1973, Wyoming’s “sore loser law” stipulates “an unsuccessful candidate for office at a primary election whose name is printed on any party ballot may not accept nomination for the same office at the next general election.” 

In Teton County, plaintiff Christina Kitchen was prevented from voting for her brother-in-law, Jim Rooks, when he ran as a Democrat for the Teton County Commission in 2024. Kitchen was a registered Republican at the time. 

“The ability to change affiliation to vote in the primary of her choice has been and remains important to Kitchen because of her desire to vote for the person she deems most qualified and who supports her views rather than those who are affiliated with a particular political party,” according to the complaint. 

The law also prohibited Rooks, another plaintiff in the case, from running as an independent in the general election after he lost his primary election bid. 

In 2022, Jim Roscoe declined to seek reelection for House District 22, which he’d represented as the Legislature’s sole independent. That lack of an affiliation has prevented him from participating in Wyoming’s primary elections. 

Roscoe believes, according to the lawsuit, that Wyoming’s major political parties “have become increasingly dominated by platforms and views of those in control of the national parties, extreme in their views, rhetoric, and actions, and unduly hostile to the members of opposing parties.”

As such, he “has an interest in and believes that giving Wyoming voters a greater number of candidate choices and more opportunities to elect independent candidates unaffiliated with any political party will help moderate the above-described trends he sees in Wyoming’s political parties.”

The complaint

The lawsuit highlights several sections of the Wyoming Constitution, including its “Equal Political Rights” provision. 

“Since equality in the enjoyment of natural and civil rights is only made sure through political equality, the laws of this state effecting the political rights and privileges of its citizens shall be without distinction of race, color, sex, or any other circumstance or condition whatsoever (emphasis added by plaintiffs) other than individual incompetency, or unworthiness duly ascertained by a court of competent jurisdiction,” Article 1, Section 3 reads. 

The complaint also points to other sections of the constitution that require the Legislature to craft laws so that “the names of all candidates for the same office, to be voted for at any election, shall be printed on the same ballot,” and that “elections shall be open, free and equal, and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent an untrammeled exercise of the right of suffrage.” 

As such, the plaintiffs are asking the court for a declaratory judgment, or to clarify their legal rights and the obligations of the state.