Wyoming
Elections committee forwards 7 more election revamp bills to session
Legislative attempts to bolster the integrity of Wyoming elections, which some officials statewide insist are already trustworthy, aren’t disappearing anytime soon.
That’s after Wyoming lawmakers on the interim Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee forwarded seven bills that would revamp the way the state runs and operates its election processes. Wyoming voted for Pres. Trump more than any other state in 2024.
The seven bills could make recounts more common, restrict ballot harvesting, require more signatures for independent candidates to get onto general election ballots, allow for more hand count audits, and ban the use of student and non-photo IDs when voting.
The seven draft bills include:
Sen. Bill Landen (R-Casper) said one of his constituents told him the ID bill could make it harder for his 87-year-old mom to vote.
“I circle back and go, ‘Well, what exactly are we doing here?’” said Landen.
Supporters of the legislation, like Wyoming Freedom Caucus member Rep. Steve Johnson (R-Cheyenne), repeated the contention that the bills are about bolstering election integrity in a state where some feel its elections could be manipulated and that policy should be reshaped based on that possibility.
The latest suite of bills to reconfigure state elections come as doubts about election integrity have increased following false claims that the 2020 general election was stolen from Pres. Donald Trump.
Johnson quoted from the Wyoming Constitution during discussion of the independent candidates bill.
“Article Six, Section Thirteen: ‘Purity of elections to be provided for,’” he read, continuing, “that’s the major cause [of why] we’re here. We want our elections to be free and fair and honest. And there’s a lot of people that don’t think that necessarily all the elections are free and fair.”
Critics said repeated discussions of the need for election integrity are themselves undermining confidence in elections.
“The comments about the decrease in confidence reminds me of the man who murdered his parents and then threw himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan,” said Gail Symons, who operates the Wyoming civics website Civics307 and ran unsuccessfully for a state House seat in Sheridan in the last primary. “We’re losing confidence because we are always talking about how people don’t have confidence.”
The bill that would expand the use of hand counting for certain recounts caught her attention in particular, she added.
“There’s unambiguous evidence,” she said. “They are less accurate, less reliable, more time consuming, dramatically more expensive and logistically unsustainable. All of these bills are based … on assumption, supposition, speculation, conjecture, fallacy, unsubstantiated theories, baseless claims and debunked conspiracy theories.”
Officials like Secretary of State Chuck Gray have said similar election bills are about preventing voter fraud and restoring election integrity.
But a Wyoming Public Radio investigation published in October shows only 7.5% of all formal election complaints sent to Gray’s office since he took office in January 2023 to late July 2025 alleged such fraud.
The committee voted to sponsor all seven election bills in the upcoming budget session beginning on Feb. 9. They join another three election bills previously backed by the committee.
Redistricting update
After finishing consideration of the election bills, the committee turned its attention to a report from its Reapportionment Subcommittee on alternative redistricting methods for the state Legislature.
That panel was created after a bill passed in the last general session directing lawmakers to study differences in how the state and federal constitutions carve up legislative districts across the Equality State.
The issue at hand has to do with the fact that the Wyoming Constitution says counties should have at least one representative and one senator, and that districts should follow county lines.
But a federal district court case in 1991 concluded Wyoming’s districts violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution that requires equal voting weight for citizens, otherwise known as “one person, one vote.”
That case led to Wyoming’s current multi-county districts for House and Senate seats.
In the end, despite constituent suggestions in Weston County for how to get around the discrepancy, the subcommittee’s report says, “the Subcommittee does not see a path to compile [comply] with both constitutions on this issue. A reapportionment plan that has districts with greater than ten percent population deviation is extremely unlikely to survive a constitution[al] challenge under current federal court precedent.”
That said, the report ends with an entreaty to the Management Council for further study of solutions to the problem in 2026.
“It is possible that there may be actions of Congress which could help to address this issue and possibly other solutions which have not yet been presented,” the report says. “The Subcommittee requests that the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee submit this as an interim topic to the Management Council for the 2026 interim and that Management Council approves further study on this reapportionment topic.”
All bills besides the biennium budget and a possible redistricting bill will need a two-thirds majority vote for introduction in their chamber of origin just to see the light of day in February.
This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, supporting state government coverage in the state. Wyoming Public Media and Jackson Hole Community Radio are partnering to cover state issues both on air and online.
If the Wyoming House and Senate approve its budget changes, then the chambers’ Joint Conference Committee will have helped the University of Wyoming dodge a $40 million cut, while also limiting the Wyoming Business Council to one year’s funding instead of the standard two.
The Joint Conference Committee adopted numerous changes to the state’s two-year budget draft, but didn’t formally advance the document to the House and Senate chambers. The committee meets again Monday and may do so at that time.
Then, the House and Senate can vote on whether to adopt that draft by a simple majority.
First, UW
Starting in January, the Joint Appropriations Committee majority had sought to deny around $20 million in exception requests the University of Wyoming made, while imposing a $40 million cut to the university’s block grant.
That’s about 10% of the state’s grant to UW but a lesser proportion of the school’s overall operating budget.
The Senate sought to restore the $60 million.
The House sought to keep the denials and cuts, ultimately settling on a bargain to cut $20 million, and hinge UW’s retention of the remaining $20 million on its finding and reporting $5 million in savings.
The Joint Conference Committee the House and Senate sent into a Friday meeting to negotiate those two stances chose to fund UW “fully,” Senate Majority Floor Leader Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, told Cowboy State Daily in the state Capitol after the meeting.
But, $10 million of UW’s $40 million block grant won’t reach it until the school charts a “road map” of how it could save $5 million, and reports that to the Joint Appropriations Committee, she added.
“A healthy exercise, I think, for them to participate in, while the Legislature still allows them to receive full grant funding,” Nethercott said.
“I’m hopeful people feel confident the University is fully funded,” she continued, as it’s “on the brink of receiving a new president, having the resources he or she may need to continue to steer the leadership of the University, our state’s flagship school into the future.”
Hours earlier in a press conference, House Speaker Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, said the Legislature has been clear that UW should avoid “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or DEI programming, and that it’s the position of the House majority that the school should tailor its programming to Wyoming’s true business needs – so UW graduates will stay in the state.
Within an earlier draft of the budget sat a footnote blocking money for Wyoming Public Media — a publicly funded media and radio entity funded through UW’s budget.
That footnote is gone from the JCC’s draft, said Nethercott.
Wyoming Business Council
The Wyoming Business Council is set to receive roughly $14 million, confined to one year, for its internal operations, said Nethercott.
“Both chambers have decided to only fund the operations,” Nethercott said, “not all the grant programs.”
She said that’s to compel the Legislature to revisit the concerns it has with the agency, then return in the 2027 legislative session with a vision for its future.
The Business Ready Communities program is “eliminated,” she said.
JCC member Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, elaborated further.
Of the appropriation, $12 million is from the state’s checking account, plus the state is authorizing WBC to use $157,787 in federal funds and nearly $1 million from other sources.
“We’re going to take it up as an interim topic in appropriations (committee) and how to rebuild it and make it work the way we think it should work,” said Pendergraft. But the JCC opted to fund the Small Business Development Center for two years, along with Economic Diversification Division for Manufacturing Works, and the Wyoming Women’s Business Center, Pendergraft noted, pointing to that language on his draft budget sheet.
Pendergraft made headlines last year by saying he wanted to eliminate the Wyoming Business Council altogether.
But Nethercott told the Senate earlier this month, legislators have complained of that agency her entire nine-year tenure.
She attributed this to what she called communications shortfalls that may not be intentional. She cosponsored a now-stalled bill this year that had sought to adopt a task force to evaluate WBC.
The Wyoming Business Council’s functions range from less controversial, like helping communities build infrastructure, to more controversial, like awarding tax-funded grants to certain businesses on a competitive application process.
Wyoming Public Television
Wyoming Public Television, which is not the same as Wyoming Public Media, is slated to receive the $3 million it lost when Congress defunded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Nethercott said.
It will also receive its usual $3 million from Wyoming.
The entity will not receive another $3 million it had sought to upgrade its emergency-alert towers, said Nethercott, “because we received information from them… they have another source to pay for the replacement and maintenance of the towers.”
Like the Wyoming Business Council, the Wyoming Public TV’s functions range from less controversial to more controversial.
The entity operates, maintains and staffs emergency alert towers throughout Wyoming.
Wyoming Public TV also produces entertainment and informational movies. Its state grants run through the community colleges’ budget.
State Employees
Nethercott noted that the JCC advanced to both chambers an agreement to pay $111 million from the state’s checking account to give state employees raises.
Those raises would bring them to 2024 market values for their work, she noted.
Because that money is coming from the state’s checking account, or “general fund,” and not its severance tax pool as the House had envisioned, then $111 million won’t impact the $105 million investment another still-viable bill seeking to build an “energy dominance fund” envisions.
That bill, sponsored by Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, seeks to lend to large energy-sector projects.
Biteman told Cowboy State Daily in an interview days before the session convened that its purpose is to counteract “green” compacts investors have adopted, and which have bottlenecked energy projects.
Wyoming’s executive branch is currently suing BlackRock and other investors on that same assertion.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
It’s Week 11 in the 2026 Wyoming prep girls’ basketball season. That means it’s the end of the regular season. 3A and 4A schools have their final game or games to determine seeding before the regional tournament, or if a team is locked into a position, one last chance to fine-tune before the postseason. Games are spread across four days.
WYOPREPS WEEK 11 GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE 2026
Every game on the slate is a conference matchup. Several rivalry contests are part of this week’s schedule, such as East against Central, Cody at Powell, Lyman hosting Mountain View, and Rock Springs at Green River, just to name a few. Here is the Week 11 schedule of varsity games WyoPreps has. All schedules are subject to change. If you see a game missing, please email david@wyopreps.com.
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Laramie 68 Cheyenne South 27 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)
Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic
Final Score: #4 Thunder Basin 64 Campbell County 32 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: #1 Cody 77 Worland 33 (conference game) – 5 different Fillies with a 3, and Hays led the way with 34 points.
Final Score: #2 Lander 49 Lyman 34 (conference game)
Final Score: #4 Wheatland 51 Douglas 40 (conference game)
Final Score: #5 Powell 48 Lovell 42 (conference game)
Final Score: Burns 56 Torrington 43 (conference game)
Final Score: Glenrock 78 Newcastle 30 (conference game)
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CLASS 4A
Rock Springs at #2 Green River, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#4 Thunder Basin at #5 Sheridan, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cheyenne East at #3 Cheyenne Central, 6 p.m. (conference game)
Jackson at Star Valley, 6 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
#3 Pinedale at Mountain View, 4 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cody at #5 Powell, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Newcastle at Buffalo, 12:30 p.m. (conference game)
Glenrock at Rawlins, 3 p.m. (conference game)
Torrington at #4 Wheatland, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
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4A Boys State Swim Meet for 2026 in Cheyenne
Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com
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