Ahead of the 2026 general election, Wyoming Public Radio and KHOL Jackson offered all candidates in competitive races for statewide and federal offices 20-minute interviews to introduce themselves to voters and discuss their positions. The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Bryan McCarty is the Democratic Party’s nominee running for Wyoming secretary of state. His campaign website is www.facebook.com/BGMc4WY. He spoke with WPR’s Melodie Edwards.
Click here to listen to a special episode of Open Spaces previewing the races for statewide and federal offices.
Melodie Edwards: Do you mind just saying your name and your title as it's related to this candidacy?
Bryan McCarty: My name is Brian McCarty, and my title is citizen.
ME: Why did you decide to run for this office?
BM: The zeroth thing I think I wanna say, which comes before the first thing, is just to thank you for this opportunity and to express my gratitude to you and your station for playing this role in the interest of a healthy democracy, just making sure that your audience has an opportunity to be informed and to hear what the candidates have to say in their own words.
To that point, where I like to try to start my campaigning when I'm at a campaign-type event, which I would consider this to be, is by not talking about myself. My view is that people in general, not so much in political terms, but just in general, are more interested and concerned about themselves than they are with me. The way those two intersect is what I can do as secretary of state to have a positive influence on the things that they are concerned about.
The real reason that I like to start there is because it tends to be rhetorical, but it's also a legitimate question, is to ask the members of your audience directly: ‘What is keeping you up at night these days personally?’ Things that you are concerned about around your kitchen table, so to speak. The reason that I start there in political terms is unless you voted for the current occupant of the White House, and even a lot of you that did, you constitute the majority all by yourself, and not just a majority, but a supermajority, to the tune of 75 or 80%. And you, all by yourself, can stop this nonsense in its tracks.
I personally believe just knowing that, or at least believing in it enough to go and validate it for yourself, 'cause this is the kind of thing that people really need to satisfy themselves of, go look it up. Look at the results of the last presidential election. Eighty-five, or I think it's 75%, of everybody that is of voting age in this country didn't vote for the incumbent.
Editor’s Note: In 2024, 49.8% of voters cast a ballot for Trump, compared to 32% of all eligible voters, according to an analysis by Pew Research Center.
I just believe that if people can satisfy themselves of that, that, all by itself, will get them to the polls in November. ‘You mean I can make all this nonsense stop?’ Yes, you can, and you do it by voting. So please do.
ME: I do have one more question that would be about your personal information, and so you can take it or leave it, but I'm gonna at least offer it to you. Do you mind talking a little bit about your experience and how your work has prepared you to lead the office of secretary of state?
BM: Oh, not at all. Be glad to. Appreciate the opportunity, and that's really the next thing that the people are gonna wanna know is: So why him? Just a campaigning anecdote: I was at a get-together of supporters not that long ago, and one of the supporters kind of took me to task because I haven't been a secretary of state before. That was a really good interaction, because it really got my mind to thinking.
Part of the answer is, I'm pretty sure my opponent in the election has never been secretary of state either. So, if that is your perfectionist litmus test, what are you gonna do about it, contrarian voter? Because neither one of us satisfies your idealistic requirement. The way I have chosen to frame that is I want you, Mr. or Mrs. Voter, I want you to think about the person who is looking down the barrel of the gun of our own government that is about to kill you, because that is the kind of thing that is happening in our country right now, every single day, and I want you to think about your decision between two equally, quote-unquote, "unqualified" candidates and what you are going to do with your vote.
Are you going to not vote? Are you going to vote for the other guy because he's got more experience, even though it's not enough to satisfy your requirement? And how are you going to explain your decision to that person who is right about to get murdered by our own government, and in a way that will satisfy them that you're doing the right thing, and their family and their friends? Because that is the reality of where we are.
[I] haven't forgotten about your actual question. I will get to it, and I'm about to get in on that. One of the things that's been really kind of an unexpected pleasure about running for this office is how it is tying together so many aspects of my own personal experience in life and career and et cetera. Just a couple of the things that the office requires that I bring to the table is an appreciation for fulfilling the requirements of the office as they are defined by statute, basically. I mean, there's a couple other things that sort of roll into it, but that's the basics of it, and the incumbent is not doing that. He's doing a bunch of other stuff. He may be doing that as well, but that's the biggest part of the job, is [to] administer it according to the way it has been defined by the people who do that defining, the Legislature primarily. So how does my personal experience figure into that?
A couple of the major elements of my career experience are being a Six Sigma Green Belt with General Electric back when it was still what used to be known as the Real General Electric, the most profitable, most valuable business on the Fortune 500, one of the founding institutions on the Dow Jones Industrial, the last one that was still there that was one of the original ones. That has given me an appreciation for, and a methodology for, looking into problems and coming up with solutions and making sure that they work. It doesn't really seem to me that, from a definitional standpoint, there's that many issues with the secretary of state's office. The incumbent is a little bit of a different story.
It seems to me like the office is basically pretty stable in terms of how it is defined and administered, and I've got plenty of career anecdotes about identifying a problem, recognizing it, doing the brainstorming to come up with alternative solutions and choosing the one that seems to be the most appropriate in terms of matching up with what the crux of the problem is, and implementing it and looping back to make sure that the results are what you intend it to be. So that was, I would say, one of the main elements of my career experience that is gonna be pertinent in this office.
Also, coming from a culture that was very, very highly focused on regulatory compliance and integrity and all of that kind of thing. I really am delighted to talk about how my experience correlates.
One of the other pieces that was probably my favorite career experience in my entire career was in learning how to diagnose train derailments. Most of my career has to do with the railroad industry, and part of that, when I was starting out, was learning how to investigate and diagnose a derailment when it happens, and do the data collection and doing the data analysis, and coming up with the cause. Again, it's sort of like a criminal investigation, where the explanation that is the simplest one that most closely correlates with the actual evidence that you have been able to accumulate most often is the right one. The thing that just appealed to my nature about that was there's pretty much no way of politicking the root cause of a derailment. What caused it is what caused it, and it's based on facts and science and reality, and those are the values that I intend to bring to the execution of my responsibilities as secretary of state. Stay in reality, stay based on facts, and just let the investigation into whatever the issue might be play itself out, and do it authentically and not try to force my own personal views into whatever the solution I propose is. Just follow the evidence.
ME: What's the secretary of state's role when it comes to elections and ensuring Wyomingites are aware of their civic rights and their civic responsibilities?
BM: Gosh, I wish I knew the answer to that question. I'm just kidding. That is at least, I would say, 75% of the responsibility of the office: Make sure that elections are administered properly according to the actual law, not what we do illegally and pretend and claim is legal because it's just the complete opposite, which is kind of the thing that's happening these days around here.
Just make sure that everybody that is legally entitled to vote, which, by the way, current procedures basically require you can't get registered if you don't have the kinds of identification and proof of citizenship and residency and all that, that people are proposing as some new additional legislation. You already have to do all that if you want to register. When you go to vote, that's what gets checked when you go to the poll, is they look you up to see if you're on the rolls as a voter. If you're there, it means you've already complied with all that stuff that people are trying to create as additional requirements, which are a solution to a nonexistent problem. So making sure everybody that is legally permitted to vote has the opportunity to do so, that the results are tabulated accurately and in a timely fashion, and reported out to the public at large as well as to the governmental stakeholders.
What I have learned about the district clerks of the state is that they are really good at what they do. The one here in Washakie County has just been a treat to work with, has been completely neutral in terms of executing the responsibilities of her position, not doing anything special for me just because I happen to be a candidate for a statewide office living in her county, but sharing what she is legally authorized and obligated to share, and pointing me in the right direction when I had questions.
I have absolute faith in everything I've seen from our district clerks and their ability and intention to administer elections properly according to the way they have been defined. That is, by far, the biggest part of the job and which I intend to do to the letter and spirit of the law.
ME: Let's do the rapid fire. You'll just answer with just a few words or a phrase. Do you support secure ballot drop boxes?
BM: If that's what the legislation that governs the office calls for.
ME: Do you support mail-in ballots?
BM: Yes.
ME: Do you support voters being able to change their political party at any time?
BM: I don't believe that is allowed under the current regulations, so my answer would be no.
ME: Do you support absentee voting for anyone who wants it?
BM: Yes.
ME: Do you support hand counting of ballots?
BM: Where there's any indication that that is required in order to validate the results, yes.
ME: And why would you say that you support hand counting of ballots?
BM: The main dynamic there is when it's a super close election. I don't know what the legal requirements are, in terms of fractions of the total number of votes cast, but if it's close enough, I think there's a triggering mechanism for hand counting under those circumstances. Beyond that, if there is any actual factual information that suggests something improper has taken place, then that would be another reason to go down the hand counting route. At least a sample to see what the sample says, and then kind of take it from there.
ME: Wyoming has a business-friendly system for anonymously setting up shop in Wyoming for $50 to $100 a pop. That's led to tens of thousands of new businesses registering here, often without actually stepping foot in Wyoming. What are the benefits and problems with Wyoming's less strict rules about registering businesses in the state?
BM: I trust you're not looking for a lightning answer to that question.
It gets back to, well, one of the things that I didn't mention about my background is that I have spent time in a role as an internal auditor for a multi-billion-dollar business enterprise. So, I have a real appreciation and experience with getting to the source documentation for whatever the topic is that you are investigating. To the extent that the SOS office administers business registrations and reporting, that is the entry into doing a deep dive on any business, basically every business. Make sure that you can independently verify that the information that they are providing when they submit their application to be registered to do business in Wyoming is legitimate, and to drill all the way down to who is the ultimate beneficial owner, so to speak, of that business. Is it who they say they are? Is it some entity you've never heard of in terms of a business authorized to do business in Wyoming? Get to the bottom of it at the very front end.
Beyond that, there is a complaint mechanism built into the secretary of state's office for consumers and businesses to raise issues for the office to consider investigating, and investigating if the circumstances seem to warrant it. That's another mechanism by which we can ensure that businesses doing business in Wyoming are legitimate and are doing it legitimately. Valid concerns about [the] behavior of a business, whether it's reporting sales tax information and submitting their sales tax revenue to the state in a timely manner, or some sort of consumer mistreatment, that is the role of the secretary of state's office. I'm confident that the office's staff is well-versed in how to do that. If there's anything I can do based on my career experience to help things along, I'm more than happy to do that and ready, willing and able.
ME: We got about two minutes left. I think I'll try and squeeze in one more question. Wyoming residents have sometimes found their address being used by a business that they don't have connection to. What's the secretary of state's role in ensuring that that doesn't happen?
BM: I would say that the answer is rolled up into the answer to the previous question, is we've got the mandate and the resources to make sure that people, businesses that register to do business in Wyoming are who they say they are and what they say they are. If it doesn't pass muster, we go in and root it out and take appropriate remedial action, whether that's fines or court cases or legal action. We do what is the right thing to do to correct those situations when they come to our attention.
ME: Okay. I'm gonna squeeze in one more.
BM: You're cheating.
ME: I got one more minute, I think, so I'm gonna do it. If we go a little bit over, that's okay.
BM: You're the boss.
ME: A lot of land in Wyoming is owned by LLCs. What's the relationship between private property, privacy, and also transparency and accountability for land stewardship?
BM: There is my favorite. I'm gonna go at it a little bit sideways, because public lands is the avenue for fixing, really, the problem with our state and our country is finding ways to work together with people that are on the other side of the aisle. Public lands defines our politics, it defines our culture, and it defines our economy.
Eighty percent of every person in Wyoming that is of voting age agrees public lands belong in public hands, and that is the direction I intend to take it with the office's seat on the State Board of Land Commissioners, is making sure that Wyoming's lands are used for the benefit of the people of Wyoming, and that any negative consequences of commercial use are mitigated by the people that are benefiting from it.
You can find more conversations with Wyoming’s candidates on our How do I vote? page.
