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.

WYOMING, MI — Voters on Tuesday, Nov. 4, approved both a $30 million bond proposal and a 10-year sinking fund millage renewal for Wyoming Public Schools.

The bond passed with 813 votes (59.91%) to 544 votes (40.09%), while the millage passed with 835 votes (61.62%) to 520 votes (38.38%), according to the unofficial vote totals from the Kent County Clerk’s Office.

The 2025 bond proposal totals $29.75 million to complete projects identified in the WPS Master Facilities Plan, including new learning spaces for students, air conditioning and secure entrances in remaining buildings, updates to the elementary media center, and a gym addition at Gladiola Elementary School.

The previous bond requests came at no tax increase to residents. The 2025 request will decrease taxes from the current rate of 5.65 mills to 5.50 mills in 2026, WPS Superintendent Craig Hoekstra said.

For a home with a $100,000 taxable value, that equals $550 a year, according to WPS.

The millage proposal was to renew the school system’s current sinking fund millage of .4595 mills — less than 46 cents on each $1,000 of taxable property value — for 2026 through 2035.

For a home with a $100,000 taxable value, that amounts to $45.95 in taxes per year. The millage was expected to raise approximately $630,427 in the first year for repairs, safety, technology replacements and buses, according to WPS.

All election results are unofficial until verified by the Board of County Canvassers.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Corporations, Elections & Political Subdivisions Committee voted Monday to sponsor a sweeping package of six election reform bills that boost manual ballot counting and expand poll watcher authority. 

The bills advanced despite stern warnings from county clerks that the changes could prove logistically impossible to implement by the 2026 election cycle. Critics argued the package restricts ballot access and competition for independent candidates.

The committee’s action sponsors six working draft measures that focus on shifting the election process toward increased hand counting of ballots and enhanced oversight.

Lawmakers first approved “26LSO-0043, Random hand count audits of election results,” 11–2. The bill requires county clerks to conduct a hand count audit in one randomly selected precinct after primary and general elections to compare manual results to electronic tabulation.

The committee also voted 11–2 to sponsor “26LSO-0044, Elections-hand counting for recounts,” which mandates automatic hand recounts in close statewide and legislative races. Rep. Mike Yin, D-Teton County, and Sen. Cole Case, R-Lander, cast the dissenting votes on both measures.

Malcolm Ervin, Platte County clerk and president of the County Clerks Association, urged the committee to consider a later effective date for the changes. The bill requires the Secretary of State to adopt rules for the audits by July 1, 2026.

“I hate to be the one that comes up here and says I worry that this as written can’t be implemented effectively in ’26, but that is the reality,” Ervin said, adding the state should bear the cost of the new recount method.

A speaker from Sheridan County, Elena Campbell, supported transparency but sought more expansive audits, saying: “If the mechanics of voting are shrouded in complexity or lack transparency, trust in the electoral outcome diminishes, eroding the foundation of our very republic.”

The contested “26LSO-0045, Poll watchers-polling stations observation” passed 9–4. The bill expands poll watcher authority, clarifying they can observe all election procedures, including setup and shutdown. It allows one poll watcher per political party for each precinct served at multi-precinct locations.

Sen. Bill Landen, R-Natrona County, was strongly opposed, calling the bill excessive.

“To me, this is the bottom dweller of the whole bunch,” he said. “We’ve had testimony that, in many of the circumstances, we don’t even have venues that will hold all of these people. This is a very comprehensive bill that asks an awful lot out of our county clerks. … I don’t think it’s needed. I think it’s overkill and it does nothing for the integrity of elections in my view.”

Fremont County Clerk Julie Freese detailed the potential logistical burdens, saying her 32 precincts “could mean 96 poll watchers. This is more than my largest vote center has judges for.”

Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Laramie County, supported the measure.

“We need to provide for purity of these elections. We need to let the people know that these elections are accurate and competent,” he said.

The committee also voted 9–3 to sponsor “26LSO-0048, Elections-acceptable identification revisions,” requiring all acceptable ID for in-person voting to include a photograph. It repeals Medicare/Medicaid and public school/university IDs as acceptable forms. Secretary of State Chuck Gray said the goal was to achieve “true voter ID” to prevent voter impersonation.

Richard Garrett of AARP Wyoming asked the committee to consider alternatives for elderly voters who might struggle to get photo IDs. Garrett offered several proposals, including one modeled after Arkansas law. 

“In Arkansas, we actually find that nursing home residents without a photo ID are allowed to vote at the polling place with documentation of nursing home residency provided by a long-term care facility administrator, attesting the voter is a resident of the facility,” he said. “Nebraska also allows for the same provision.”

The bill aimed at independent candidate requirements, “26LSO-0046, Elections-independent candidate requirements,” also passed 10–3, increasing the required number of signatures to 5% for district races and aligning the filing deadline with partisan candidates. Landen, Yin and Case voted no.

“What this does is close the door on independent candidates, and ultimately the question is what are we afraid of?” Yin said. “This is literally restricting access to the general election ballot in a way that kind of just says that we’re afraid of competition. … Out of all of the bills that we have so far, this is the most rankling one just because it says we’re scared, and I think it makes it very apparent that we’re scared as a legislature.”

The final bill sponsored was “26LSO-0047, Elections-voting machine and voting system tests,” which passed 11–1, with Yin again dissenting. The bill clarifies testing procedures and removes the previous presumption that voting machines were properly prepared.

The committee tabled “26LSO-0049, Election transparency,” an omnibus bill that would have mandated paper ballots and lowered the period for early in-person absentee voting.

The body previously supported “26LSO-0041, Ballot drop boxes-prohibition” during its August meeting. Under that proposed change, marked absentee ballots must be mailed or hand delivered to the clerk, explicitly banning the use of receptacles by officials.

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