The Wyoming State Canvassing Board certified the results of the 2024 general election at its Wednesday meeting, rejecting calls from a handful of Weston County voters not to do so.
The calls stem from an error the local county clerk made on Election Day that initially resulted in a miscount. Ultimately the count was resolved after the Secretary of State’s Office intervened, but several voters who testified Wednesday remain concerned.
“I would like to state that if you certify this election, knowing that one county found flipped votes, and no other counties have been checked by hand, that you’re damaging the integrity of Wyoming,” Susan Love told the board.
While the board — chaired by Secretary of State Chuck Gray alongside Gov. Mark Gordon, State Treasurer Curt Meier and State Auditor Kristi Racines — unanimously voted to certify the results, the issue in Weston County remains in play.
“We do plan on a more full analysis evaluating [the clerk’s] conduct that we are going to present to a number of offices including the Attorney General’s office,” Gray said at the meeting.
Other issues in Big Horn, Fremont, Teton and Washakie counties presented challenges for officials, but each problem was “appropriately handled,” Gray said, and resulted in “a successful election.”
Gray also used the meeting to make his priorities and expectations for the upcoming 2025 legislative session clear. That includes amending voter ID requirements, creating a durational residency requirement for voters, banning ballot drop boxes and requiring proof of residency and citizenship to register to vote.
Gray would also like his office to have a stronger role in running elections across the state.
“The election code is beautiful because it says at the start that the secretary of state is the chief election official for the state and the county clerks are chief election officials for the county,” Gray said. “So you have this beautiful check and balance.”
But that could be improved upon, Gray said.
“I think having the state more involved, particularly our office,” Gray said, since the secretary of state is the chief elections officer. “I think it would more clearly be in alignment with that aspirational goal at the start of Title 22, the election code.”
Election Day challenges
“We are, in general, very excited to have conducted a very successful general election for the citizens of our great state of Wyoming,” CJ Young, elections division director for the secretary of state’s office, told the board, noting there were five Election Day incidents officials had to resolve.
Officials in Big Horn County had to clean a tabulator machine that wouldn’t accept a ballot, Young said, while a sticky note left on a ballot caused a paper jam in Washakie County.
A countywide race in Teton County was close enough to trigger a recount, Young said, which revealed two jammed ballots in the process.
There were two incidents in Fremont County, one of which was related to a tabulator that was dropped in transit, the second involved having to use an alternate tabulator to process absentee ballots.
“It’s worth noting that during this process [in Fremont County], it was observed by multiple members of the public and available by the clerk to anyone who wished to watch,” Young said.
“Lastly, in Weston County, we had a more unique situation,” Young said before turning the discussion back over to Gray.
Weston County Clerk Becky Hadlock printed three versions of the ballot due to errors on the first two, Gray said. 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 Rep. Chip Neiman (R-Hulett) was running unopposed for reelection.
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, he said, and when Hadlock didn’t answer his calls, he sent the sheriff’s office to her home around midnight.
Hadlock initially denied there was an issue, Gray said, but ultimately agreed to the secretary of state’s request that her office complete a hand tabulation of the ballots, which “confirmed the Weston County Clerk’s mistake.”
The recount showed that Neiman received 1,269 votes, and the results were certified by the county canvassing board.
“Although the immediate issue has been resolved, our office has been in contact with the Attorney General’s office throughout this process, and also specifically concerning accountability for these actions,” Gray said.
The secretary’s account of what happened “laid it out very well,” Malcolm Ervin, Platte County clerk and president of the Wyoming County Clerks’ Association, told the board.
“Dr. Seuss wrote the book ‘Oh the Places You’ll Go.’ I think if he were to write one about elections it would be ‘Oh The Things You’ll See,’” Ervin said. “It’s always something that pops up that we’ve got to navigate.
“In Weston specifically, Clerk Hadlock has taken full ownership of that issue, it’s a uniquely human error and so I’m confident we’ve reached a positive resolution and an accurate count in that situation.”
“Sometimes the best lessons are those you learn the hard way, and I’m here to tell you we learned this one the hard way,” Ervin said. “So we’ve learned from it and we will certainly make sure there is something in place to ensure it does not happen again.”
Ervin said his association has plans to meet with the secretary of state’s office next week to discuss policy and what can be done to prevent a similar situation from happening again.
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