After it became public that Wyoming’s secretary of state shared a non-public statewide voter registration list with the federal government back in August, the state’s governor and others say it’s up to states to oversee their own elections.
The list contains sensitive information like partial Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers, according to letters sent between the feds and the state.
Wyoming is one of at least 10 states that have provided or said they would provide the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) their full voter registration lists, including sensitive information about state residents, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. The DOJ has sued more than 20 other states and Washington, D.C., for not sharing theirs.
In a press release, Secretary of State Chuck Gray said he shared the list with the DOJ so that the federal agency could “assess Wyoming’s compliance with the Help America Vote Act and the Civil Rights Act.”
In an interview with Wyoming Public Radio, one county clerk wondered about how successive presidential administrations will handle Wyoming’s list.
Gov. Mark Gordon pointed to states’ rights under the U.S. Constitution.
Gordon says Wyoming elections are secure
Gordon made his comments at a ballroom in Lander on Feb. 3 during a discussion on the biennial budget bill that’s currently being debated by state lawmakers. Someone in the audience asked Gordon about Gray’s decision to give the list to the DOJ.
“Let me start by saying, I think our elections have always been very safe,” said Gordon. “But I would say that Secretary Gray's actions – he is a duly elected officer in his own right, and I think that's an issue between the voters and Secretary Gray. I'm not trying to dodge the question, but that is his responsibility.”
Gordon went on.
“Personally, I believe strongly both in our country's Constitution, which delegated the responsibility for elections to the states, and our state's Constitution, delegating that down to the county clerks. That's where it ought to be, and that's where I feel it's best served. I am understanding that he had conversations with the [Wyoming] attorney general. That is attorney-client privilege. I don't know what the nature of those conversations were, so I'm not going to speak further on it.”
Gordon’s Lander comments came after renewed focus on Gray and his move to share the list following criticism of the decision by the League of Women Voters of Wyoming.
A county clerk weighs in
Fremont County Clerk Julie Freese said each county clerk in Wyoming maintains a voter registration list in his or her county that is part of one registration system that the secretary of state oversees.
The voter lists clerks maintain can be given out, for instance, to candidates running for office or elected officials who request them in order to have a precinct list of voters in their area.
But Freese stressed that under state law, clerks cannot include personally identifiable information on those lists, like Social Security numbers, dates of birth, phone numbers or emails.
“ I got a response from the secretary [of] state that he'd gone through [Attorney General Keith Kautz] and was doing it legitimately with the Help America Vote Act. That's all I know,” she said. “I did question, like, ‘I can't give this [information] out. How did that happen?’ And so that's when I got a response that he had gone through the AG.”
The Help America Vote Act was signed into law by former Pres. George W. Bush in 2002. The legislation was created in response to irregularities in the 2000 elections and laid out a series of new election mandates for state and local governments.
Freese said she wondered about forthcoming presidential administrations and future departments of justice: Will they safeguard Wyomingites’ information and protect it from leaks or breaches?
“Just because you have an administration at the time that you trust with that information, does that mean the next administration that comes up, will they get that same information? And will they protect it the same way?” she said. “Those are the only questions I have with that. He's the secretary of state. He should know what his legal boundaries are, and I respect that.”
Gray says he’s following the law
During a visit to Washington, D.C. for the National Association of Secretaries of State winter conference, Gray answered questions from reporters about Wyoming’s list and what he’d done to safeguard it. Audio of the interaction was provided to WPR by Chris Teale, the managing editor of the news website Route Fifty.
“ We laid out the requirements of Wyoming and federal law in our communications, and that is very clear,” said Gray. “But what is also clear is that at the request of the Department of Justice, of the federal government, pursuant to the Civil Rights Act, that routine voter list maintenance is required and that collaboration is required.”
A June letter from the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division requested 15 items from Gray’s office, mostly about processes used to maintain voter registration rolls. The final item was, “Please send us Wyoming’s current statewide voter registration list. Please include both active and inactive voters.”
Gray’s office responded just within the requested 30 days, offering narrative responses to the first 14 requests. In response to item 15, he wrote, “Our office has furnished previously exported registry lists and history filed upon receipt of a public records request, and has routinely provided previously exported lists when requested. Accordingly, a voter registry list exported on July 10, 2025, which is now a public record, has been shared.” Gray indicated all documents were shared via the Justice Enterprise File Sharing (“JEFS”) System, a secure internal and external file sharing system.
In August, the DOJ confirmed receipt, but said the list “must contain all fields, including the registrant’s full name, date of birth, residential address, his or her state driver’s license number or the last four digits of the registrant’s social security number as required under the Help America Vote Act (“HAVA”) to register individuals for federal elections.”
DOJ said the voter registration list is subject to federal privacy protections, citing a section of the Civil Rights Act that says, “Unless otherwise ordered by a court of the United States, neither the Attorney General nor any employee of the Department of Justice, nor any other representative of the Attorney General, shall disclose any record or paper produced pursuant to this chapter, or any reproduction or copy, except to Congress and any committee thereof, governmental agencies, and in the presentation of any case or proceeding before any court or grand jury.”
And also, “all data received from you will be kept securely and treated consistently with the Privacy Act [of 1974].”
Later that month, Gray replied, saying he’d reviewed the request with Wyoming’s attorney general and agreed to disclose the requested records.
The League of Women Voters wrote in a Jan. 31 press release that Gray’s decision “undermines public confidence” in state elections and called for an investigation by AG Kautz into the matter.
“The safest way to protect sensitive data is to limit access to it, ensuring only those who absolutely need it can access it,” the press release states. “States have private, individual voter rolls for a reason. There was no reason to hand over Wyoming voters’ private information to the federal government.”
But Gray said in his own press release that the list would remain safe.
“Contrary to the false claims made by both the Wyoming Democrats and the League of Women Voters, voter information has, and continues to remain, confidential under the law,” it states. “As Wyoming's chief election official, I take my duty to ensure compliance with the law very seriously.”
Gray has made reshaping the way the state runs its elections a key part of his legislative agenda.
In the 2025 general session, Gray defended bills, like one that would've required proof of citizenship to register to vote, by testifying to a House committee, “When you don't have these verification measures, you don't know how many times [fraud] is happening that you don't catch.”
An October 2025 investigation by WPR found few formal complaints filed to the secretary of state’s office contain allegations of voter fraud, according to documents received through an open records request. County clerks say documented cases of voter fraud are rare.
Gray’s office has been vocal about using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, a federal service administered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that allows government agencies to verify immigration status and U.S. citizenship of applicants seeking benefits or licenses.
Gray announced last July he’d signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to use the SAVE Program to “enhance voter list maintenance.”
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.
