Kamila Kudelska: With the election behind us, we’re taking a moment to go over how election day went, what the results mean for the next Legislature and what the next steps the Legislature will take before the session starts in January. With me today are Wyoming Public Rado’s statehouse reporter Chris Clements and Laramie-focused reporter Jeff Victor. Hey guys.
Chris Clements: Hey Kamila!
Jeff Victor: Howdy.
KK: Alright, so let’s get started with you, Jeff. You looked into voter turnout. What did you find?
JV: Well, despite what you might think from the lines on election day, Wyoming actually had a smaller turnout this year than for 2020. This year, more than 271,000 voters cast ballots in the general election. But in the last presidential election, that number was even larger, with more than 278,000 voters.
University of Wyoming political science professor Andrew Garner told me Wyoming’s not alone in this. Some ballots are still being counted, but across the nation, it looks like there was a small decrease in turnout, whether you look at the total numbers or the percentage of eligible voters who cast ballots.
Andrew Garner: Turnout in Wyoming remains on par with 2020, down slightly, consistent with the national trend.
KK: Okay, but people in Wyoming were still waiting in long lines to vote on Election Day. We heard from multiple people that lines to vote were long. One person even said they waited in line for two hours. If there were fewer voters, why the long lines?
JV: I put that question to a few county clerks, like Karen Rimmer of Converse County. In her county, some voters found themselves waiting for a while in line.
Karen Rimmer: A lot of that had to do with the number of people who showed up at the polls who needed to register as well. That's what caused a lot of our bottleneck situation.
JV: Basically, if you were waiting in a long line to vote this year, it’s probably because a lot of the people in front of you needed to be registered.
KK: So it was first-time voters holding up the show?
JV: First-time voters and former voters who had been purged from voter rolls. So, in Wyoming, if you’re registered to vote but you miss or skip an election, you’ll be removed from the voter roll, meaning you’re going to have to re-register to vote. So some of the folks registering on Election Day were doing that.
KK: How many people registered — or re-registered — to vote on Election Day?
JV: We don’t have official numbers yet for the state as a whole. But depending on how individual counties record it, the county clerk might know. In Albany County, the clerk, Kayla White, told me 1,700 people registered on Election Day. That’s about one out of every ten people who cast a ballot in the county.
KK: Sounds like it’s not that surprising we had long lines then.
JV: Right? But White did tell me that the number of Election Day registrations felt pretty typical and that long lines aren’t that weird. We might just be misremembering.
After all, it’s been eight years since most of us voted in a presidential election in person. White still works with a lot of the same people who were working elections back then and they remember having lines out the door in 2016.
Kayla White: So I don't know that we had any more lines. I think we just forget over the years.
JV: Still, White said she wants people to have an easier time next time. So she told me she’s toying with the idea of having a sort of “express line” for registered voters, who could show their ID and have their registration checked at the door.
KW: Then you don't have to wait on the people that waited until election day to register.
JV: Both clerks, White and Rimmer, told me they were happy to see such a large turnout. Here’s Rimmer again:
KR: And even when we had our lines at the polls, our head judges reported back that people were patient. They knew it was going to take a minute. So that was really nice to see people just appreciate the work that the election judges were doing.
JV: There were a few hiccups. In Albany County, White said a label printer wasn’t working and required election judges to write them by hand. And in Converse County, Rimmer said two of her four polling places ran out of ballots and they had to print more and drive them over. But all things considered, both counties got their voters through and the day went pretty smoothly, despite the delays.
KK: Thanks for that recap of election day, Jeff. Now, elections don't end at the end of the day. It continues, basically, until they are [officially] certified. Chris, you’ve been keeping an eye on that. Right?
CC: Yes. The [results] were certified unanimously by the State Canvassing Board.
KK: Were there any big hiccups or problems with certification?
CC: I wouldn’t say there were big issues, but one thing multiple public comments and the secretary of state brought up were errors with two of Weston County’s vote tallies. Basically, the county clerk there accidentally included incorrect information on some printed ballots that were then counted as undervotes for Rep. Chip Neiman (R-Hulett).
There was a similar problem with a county commissioner race, also in Weston County. Multiple people commenting at the state certification asked the state to make Weston County do a hand recount, but since those were local races, the burden of figuring out what went wrong will stay with the county’s canvassing board. The county clerk did a hand recount after the secretary of state asked her to. Either way, the miscount for Neiman’s race didn’t change the eventual outcome. He won that race.
KK: So now we can focus on what these election results mean for Wyoming. Republicans have long controlled the Legislature, so what’s different this time?
CC: That’s right. This election season wasn’t really a question of red versus blue, but red versus redder. And after sweeping success in the general election, the further-right faction in the House now has a majority.
KK: So the Wyoming Freedom Caucus has more power now. Chris, you went to the Governor’s Business Forum to get a better idea of what this might mean for Wyoming moving forward. Let’s listen to how that went.
CC: Scores of people wearing cowboy hats, bolo ties and dark-colored suits are crowded into little white tables at the Governor’s Business Forum. Their eyes are trained onstage, focused on people like Senate President Ogden Driskill (R-Devils Tower). He and others are chatting about their hopes and fears for the 68th Wyoming Legislature.
In a word, he said he’s expecting it to be:
Ogden Driskill: Interesting. So, this session is wild, and I don't have an inkling. We don't know who Senate leadership is at this point. I've never seen it this late that we don't know who our incoming leadership is.
CC: He’s expecting to get booted from his leadership position. Some legislators have accused him of being too moderate.
OD: I'm Christmas Past. I've been there, and it's really not my place to forward policies to you folks here.
CC: That may no longer be his place, but after the general election, it’s certainly someone’s place. The tides are shifting in both chambers of the Legislature.
In the House, Wyoming Public Radio estimates the further-right Wyoming Freedom Caucus clinched at least 33 of 62 total seats. But the exact number is hard to say for sure because the caucus doesn’t have a public list of all their members.
Rep. Clark Stith (R-Rock Springs) is the chairman of the more moderate GOP Caucus in the House.
Clark Stith: My guess is you'll have more social legislation that doesn't affect the budget necessarily. And frankly, from my point of view, may amount to a fair amount of grandstanding.
CC: He and other moderate Republicans in the House are on their way out. They lost to Freedom Caucus candidates in the primary. Those losses paved the way for the caucus to shake up House leadership come January and enact its own agenda.
Rep. Jeremy Haroldson (R-Wheatland) is a member.
Jeremy Haroldson: Well, I think that right now, we kind of are in unprecedented times.
CC: Haroldson said he’s excited for his gaggle of legislators. There’s a lot on the to-do list. Rep. John Bear (R-Gillette) said he’ll be bringing a bill –
John Bear: – that will ensure that only residents of Wyoming with proof of residency and only citizens of the United States with proof of citizenship will vote in Wyoming.
CC: That’s one of several bills the caucus hopes to pass that would add new requirements to elections. A similar version was vetoed by Gov. Mark Gordon this year. Bear said they plan on resurrecting more measures that Gordon vetoed in the months ahead.
Meanwhile, Rep. Christopher Knapp (R-Gillette) says he’s looking forward to passing a dozen or so bills making the energy market friendlier to the natural resources industry.
Christopher Knapp: It's important for our revenue to have the cheapest, dispatchable, most common form of energy that Wyoming has, which is coal [and] natural gas.
CC: Also on the agenda are bills centered on further restricting diversity, equity and inclusion programs in higher education, banning all state-run gun-free zones, integrating the caucus into the current GOP supermajority, and allowing hand count audits of election results. It’s a lot.
Ryan Williamson: My name is Ryan Williamson. I am an assistant professor of political science at the University of Wyoming.
CC: Williamson said that as a state, Wyoming is special.
RW: Wyoming is one of a few, if not the only one, where the Freedom Caucus has this much influence.
CC: In part, that’s because of a long history of Republican control. He said a recent survey shows almost four out of five Wyomingites are registered as Republicans.
RW: The Democratic Party has been asking people to stop strategically voting in Republican primaries.
CC: The intense partisanship in Wyoming and across the country is actually relatively new. He said back in the 1960s, things were different.
RW: People used to care a lot about the individual characteristics of the politicians that they were voting for, who they thought would be better for their district, who they thought would be well equipped for the office that they were seeking.
CC: Back in Laramie, folks asked the panel about things like property taxes. But who knows what will happen in January, when the Freedom Caucus’s freshman class will start legislating around the same time as Republican President-elect Donald Trump returns to power.
KK: Thanks for that update, Chris. Like you just mentioned, the general session of the Wyoming legislature convenes in January – January 14 to be more exact. What can we expect until then?
CC: For one thing, interim committees will finish up their work and either scrap or approve legislation for introduction to the Legislature in January. For another thing, Republicans will vote for who they’d like to see as speaker of the House and president of the Senate.
KK: Those will be big decisions. But right now I’m interested in those off-season committees finishing up their work.
CC: There are a few bills that look like they’re going to get approval to move forward. One that’s pretty interesting is a bill that would make it easier for landlords to use law enforcement officers to make squatters leave rental properties.
KK: That’s being considered by the Joint Judiciary Committee, right?
CC: Bingo, Kamila. What caught my attention was that Democrats and members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus on the committee voted against this measure. Seems like some people thought it still needed some workshopping. But it eventually moved forward. That means it will be introduced in the January session.
KK: And what’s happening with the leadership votes you mentioned?
CC: The GOP will vote on who they want to lead the House and Senate on Nov. 23 in Casper. Those will be secret votes, but I’ll be keeping track of what happens afterward.
KK: Thanks for joining us on this last series of Road to Cheyenne for the 2024 elections. This series will be back in two years - when we’re back in election season. But our series covering the legislature, Cheyenne Roundup, will be back in January to make sure you’re aware of all the goings on during the session. The general session is two months long. Until next time, thanks all.
