Legislative leadership should back up words with action.

Are they interested in election integrity, or not?

Last Friday, April 12, 2024, Governor Gordon vetoed updates to chapter 2 of Wyoming’s Election Procedures “Identification for Voter Registration.” These changes originated with an August 22, 2023, memo from the County Clerks Association that stated, “We believe that the documentation required to prove residency can, and should, continue to be established through administrative rules.”

Secretary of State, Chuck Gray, responded by proposing changes to the administrative rules that have been periodically updated for decades. After overwhelming support both through written public comment (280 for, 180 against) and a January 26, 2024 open hearing, Gray submitted a final version on February 21, 2024. One month later, the attorneys at the legislative service offices (LSO) disagreed with the attorneys at the secretary of state’s office and sent a memo to the legislature’s management council urging that it “recommend that the governor not sign these rules.”

Within days, and without a public meeting, the LSO recommendation was rubber-stamped by an email vote (7-3). Senators Ogden Driskill (R-Devil’s Tower), Tara Nethercott (R-Cheyenne), Chris Rothfuss (D-Laramie), and Representatives Albert Sommers (R-Pinedale), Clark Stith (R-Rock Springs), Mike Yin (D-Jackson), and Dan Zwonitzer (R-Cheyenne) approved. Senators Dave Kinskey (R-Sheridan), Larry Hicks (R-Baggs), and Representative Chip Neiman (R-Hulett) opposed.

As the split vote indicates, Gordon’s veto hinged on a disputable application of state law. According to his veto letter, he and other opponents of the administrative rules claimed that the legislature did “not grant rulemaking authority to the Secretary of State to add to the statutory framework … to investigate voters’ citizenship and Wyoming residency.” Supporters of the rules disagree. But their response to the memo was never heard before the management council. Thus the public was denied an important conversation.

But, while the grounding of Governor Gordon’s veto may be disputed, its practical result is not. Without the updated rules, Wyoming citizens will endure yet more election cycles where “county clerks [are not allowed] to require documentary proof of residency at registration.” On this all agree, as is explicitly admitted in the veto letter.

Currently, when clerks are presented with valid IDs, they must studiously ignore any residency information that that document may contain. If it says that the potential voter lives in a different precinct, city, county, state or country, the clerk is “not required to look at those documents,” as Fremont County Clerk, Julie Freese, testified last August.  

Wyoming’s Constitution makes the requirement for voter registration the only non-repealable law in Wyoming (Article 6, Section 12). This is precisely to prevent non-citizens from voting (Article 6, Sections 5 and 10!). But according to some lawyers (but not others), proof-of-residency rules must be determined by the legislature, not by Wyoming’s Chief Election officer. So, the problem remains unaddressed.

The average Wyoming citizen looks at the situation and says, “Fix it already!” Wyoming legislators have known about the residency loophole for over 50 years! (The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated Wyoming’s residency requirements about the same time that the same court temporarily invalidated Wyoming’s abortion laws.)

Almost eight months ago, the county clerks asked Gray to address the problem through administrative rules. If, instead, legislation should have been drafted, why are we finding out about it only now—after the legislature is adjourned? Wyomingites have every right to be exasperated.

But being the “get ‘er done” kind of people that we are, we simply expect common sense to prevail. Okay! If it takes legislative action—and not administrative rules—to require proof of residency, we can roll with that. Just write the legislation. It could have been written and passed two months ago. But it wasn’t.

Wyomingites naturally expect the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Divisions Committee to write draft legislation for next year’s session. But the same Management Council that advised the governor to veto administrative residency rules, failed to assign that task to a legislative committee.

Proof of residency was not the only election reform that fell between the cracks. The House Corporations Committee also killed its own unanimously supported bill, HB 42 “Prohibition on private funds for conducting elections.” Rep. Cody Wylie, who moved to table the bill that would have protected Wyomingites from foreign election interference, explained that it could be taken up again during the interim. Then two days later, House leadership killed HB 38, a committee bill establishing a 30-days residency requirement. There seems to be a pattern, here.

Despite the stated intentions of legislative leadership to make these improvements, not a single one of these initiatives have been assigned as an interim topic for the 2025 legislative agenda. Why is that? At some point, the people of Wyoming must ask the question: Are legislative leaders interested in election integrity, or not?

It’s bad enough that three popular initiatives were fumbled by disputable procedural machinations. Failure to pick up the topic and try again leaves many to wonder if legislators were ever serious about advancing the ball in the first place.