CHEYENNE – The Wyoming State Board of Elections met Wednesday to certify the results of the August 2024 primary election, which includes three Democratic candidates for the state seat.
To be eligible as a write-in candidate, under Wyoming state law, they must receive at least 25 write-in votes, they must be a registered member of the party on Election Day, and they must receive a significant number of votes to affect the outcome of the election.
Larry Alwin received 27 votes for House District 28, which includes Meeteetse, Thermopolis and Shoshoni. In the November general election, Alwin will face incumbent Republican John Winter, who received 1,707 votes in August.
Martha Wright received 54 votes for District 29, which includes Sheridan. In the November general election, Wright will face incumbent Republican Ken Pendergraft, who ran unopposed in August.
Carmen Whitehead received 26 votes for the HD 60 district, which includes Green River. In the November general election, Whitehead will face Republican Marlene Brady, who defeated incumbent Tony Niemiec by 567 votes.
The deadline to file the petition as an independent candidate was 5 p.m. Monday. County clerks have until Sept. 5 to certify all candidates. Active independent candidates include Timothy Forbis in HD 10, Joseph Ramirez in HD 12 (a Laramie County seat currently held by Republican Clarence Styvar) and Bruce Burns in HD 51. In HD 57, Tyler Cessor’s petition status is marked as successful on the Secretary of State’s website.
The Board voted unanimously to approve the three candidates who were not on the ballot: Republican John Barrasso and Democrat Scott Morrow as candidates for the U.S. Senate, Republican Harriet Hageman and Democrat Kyle Cameron as candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives in 15 Senate contests and 62 contests for the State House of Representatives.
Candidates who are not on the ballot have five days to accept their nomination.
As for the local government elections, WTE previously reported that Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee said her office contacted two successful candidates who were not on the ballot. Charles J. Madden was a successful candidate for Cheyenne City Council District 3, and Mary Cushing was nominated for the Pine Bluffs mayoral race.
As of Wednesday, none of the candidates had reportedly accepted the nomination from the city clerks of Cheyenne or Pine Bluffs.
CJ Young, director of the Wyoming Division of Elections, also reported two problems that occurred on Election Day.
In Sweetwater County, a DS200 counting machine jammed during the count, resulting in three ballots being mistakenly cast twice after the polls closed. The receiving tape was printed as proof of election night results and the ballots were entered into election management software to determine the unofficial results. These ballots were then counted on another DS200 that had previously been designated as a backup for that polling place.
The second USB stick containing the correct ballot result was loaded into the election management software and the result totals were updated when the official precinct results were released. Because one provisional ballot was counted correctly, the difference between the unofficial and official results was two ballots.
The second issue occurred in Lincoln County, where a poll worker prematurely removed a DS200 media stick during the machine’s closing process, resulting in data corruption on the media stick. The ballots were then secured through the county’s chain of custody and returned to the county clerk’s office. A DS200 previously tested during logic and accuracy testing was prepared to process the ballots after they were returned, the ballots were fed through the machine, and counted properly.
Although Young said these issues were properly handled and did not affect the election outcome, some community members raised concerns about the integrity of this year’s election.
Susan Graham of Cheyenne said she was concerned about the testing of the voting machines because the test ballots were created by ES&S, a company that also makes the software and hardware used in the voting machines and has been assisting the Laramie County Clerk’s Office in conducting the testing.
Marissa Carpio of the Equality State Policy Center said the new laws in this election, such as the crossover ban that prevented voters from changing their party affiliation after May 15, and the shortening of the deadline for mail-in voting, are dishonest.
“These measures were voter suppression tactics, and the extremely low voter turnout in the primaries confirms this,” Carpio said.
In the 2024 primary election, 122,693 votes were cast, according to the Wyoming Department of State. This is the lowest number of votes recorded in a primary election since 2016, when just over 114,430 votes were cast.
However, Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray said there is still room for election reform in Wyoming. His wish list includes requiring voters to show proof of residency and citizenship when registering to vote in response to a “never-ending wave of illegal immigration,” requiring permanent residency and banning the use of unattended mail-in ballot drop boxes to cast absentee ballots.
