Tuesday is crossover day in the Wyoming Legislature.
It marks the deadline for all bills to clear third reading in their chamber of origin and cross over to the opposite chamber, either the House or Senate. Bills that don’t pass that procedural hurdle by today will die.
A series of bills that have met the deadline deal with election administration in the state.
One bill that would make hand-count recounts of elections more prevalent moved from the House to the Senate.
County clerks have told Wyoming Public Radio that hand counting ballots is more unreliable than machine counting and that it can slow the election process down, not speed it up. But proponents of the hand recount bill say it’s necessary to ensure trust in elections, especially after miscounts in Weston County’s 2024 general election.
This bill would institute hand counts as a method for recounting elections in several specific scenarios. Under the bill, hand recounts could happen automatically if the difference between the number of votes two candidates received in an election falls within a certain percentage. Candidates could also request hand recounts rather than a machine recount, and finally, the secretary of state or the county canvassing board could request a hand recount as well.
Bill sponsor and Wyoming Freedom Caucus member Rep. Jeremy Haroldson (R-Wheatland) told his colleagues on the floor of the House that he had constituents who told him the bill doesn’t go far enough in increasing hand counting, and at the same time, county clerks raised their own concerns that the bill is too sweeping.
“I know that … having this conversation, I'm making everyone mad,” said Haroldson. “I've got hand count people in my district that I love dearly. I respect dearly. And they're like, ‘Jeremy, you're wrong.’ I've got clerks listening to this right now that are saying the same thing. You guys, this is probably the hardest – you know what? I thought gun bills were easy after I got done with this one. Because when we walk this out, we have a serious issue we have to address. Is this bill in its current form the answer? I don't know.”
But, according to Haroldson, the bill would be an effective opening salvo for exploring the idea of expanding hand counting in elections even more. In an ideal world, he added, he’d prefer to see current voting equipment leave the state and “a dumb machine” become more common, like tabulators used in the 1930s.
When the bill, HB 52, was discussed in the House Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee on Feb. 11, Marguerite Herman of the Wyoming League of Women Voters spoke out against it.
“Our county clerks don't have the time, the space, the money, the manpower, and then [there’s] the reliability issue,” said Herman.
She told lawmakers that reports in other states show hand counting ballots can dramatically increase error rates, and that by contrast, evidence shows machines like those used in Wyoming have low error rates.
As amended, HB 52 appropriates $300,000 to the secretary of state to provide training to county clerks, staff and election volunteers.
Fremont County Clerk Julie Freese told WPR before the session that at the moment, it’s incredibly rare for any county clerk in Wyoming to do hand count audits of election results. She said she didn’t necessarily oppose legislation that would make them more common.
“ But I do believe our machines work, and I think this [hand counting for recounts bill] … that we're looking to help with, I think that will help people maybe feel more comfortable with what our machines are doing,” said Freese.
Elections-voting machine and voting system tests
If this bill becomes law, county clerks would need to notify local political party leaders no less than two days before a voting machine and system test and allow for at least three members of the public to attend.
The bill requires inspection of voting machines to begin no less than two weeks before an election and to continue until all machines are publicly tested and sealed.
The bill also prohibits voting machines from being used unless the machines have been tested following the new guidelines. It gives clerks the discretion to only allow enough members of the public to watch machine testing so that the process is “orderly” so long as at least three members of the public attend.
It passed the Senate and moved to the House on Feb. 16. The bill passed second reading in the House on Feb. 24. If it passes third reading in that chamber and isn’t amended, it will head to Gov. Mark Gordon’s desk for his signature.
Recall of elected municipal officers
This bill would allow voters to recall locally elected officials, like mayors and town council members, so long as 25% of that official’s constituents sign a petition demanding a new election.
The sponsor of the bill, Freedom Caucus member Rep. Scott Heiner (R-Green River), said that state law doesn’t have a provision that allows voters to demand recalls for officials in cities and towns specifically.
The bill also requires voters bringing a petition to recall an elected official to sign a statement describing why a recall is necessary. It arrived in the Senate on Feb. 19 and is scheduled to be discussed by the Senate Corporations Committee sometime this week.
2026 general election hand count comparison
This bill would require county clerks in Wyoming to hand count about 5% of all the ballots cast in their county during the 2026 general and primary elections. Then, county clerks would need to compare the results of the hand count to the results of the county’s electronic voting equipment.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Barry Crago (R-Buffalo), said its intent was to address some Wyomingites’ “concerns about the accuracy and integrity of our tabulating machines.”
“I may not be one of those people, but I do respect the opinion of a lot of those folks,” Crago told the Senate Corporations Committee on Feb. 16. “This bill is the result of a lot of work and a lot of back and forth with our county clerks. I leaned on them pretty heavily in the drafting of this particular bill.”
Crago described the bill as a chance to see how hand counting works, and said that lawmakers can then evaluate if they want it to continue for future elections.
Gail Symons, who operates the Wyoming civics website Civics307 and who has opposed other election bills this session, said she supported SF 113.
“SF 113 treats elections like any other high consequence public system,” said Symons. “You measure performance, verify exceptions and document results. This bill is a confidence audit designed to validate machine tabulation accuracy through a comparison to a bipartisan hand-count of election day paper ballots. It gives clerks a clear tool to reinforce credibility with local proof, not talking points. It replaces arguments with measurable results.”
Symons went on to say that a “loud and organized minority rejects evidence of machine accuracy.”
“Ignorance responds to education,” she said. “Resistance does not. The practical response is not louder persuasion. The response is a system that records verified facts and makes them ordinary. SF 113 creates that system.”
The bill passed third reading in the Senate on Feb. 24. It now heads to the House.
Weston County election bills
Other election bills were written to address the fallout of miscounts in Weston County’s 2024 elections. They’ve moved to the second chamber, too, including a bill to raise the penalty for defying a legislative subpoena and another that would place new requirements on county clerks’ post-election ballot audits.
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.
