CHEYENNE – Wyoming legislators tabled a huge 45 bills related to the elections during the general session of 2025 – representing around 8% of all legislation in the House and Senate this year.
Most bills are sponsored by the members and allies of Wyoming Freedom Caucus, who say that the voters have given them a strong mandate and clearly via the very system that they now seek to reform.
The president of the house Chip Neiman, a republican of the Caucus de Freedom de Hulett, told Wyofile “We have good elections.”
“But we can do a better job,” he said, adding that legislation does not concern both system revision and improvement.
“Mainly, these are proactive measures that try to ensure that our elections are safe,” said Neiman.
Critics say that the Wyoming elections are already safe given the little case of historically prosecuted electoral fraud. They also underline the State Board of Directors which voted unanimously to certify the results of the primary and general elections of 2024.
A democrat argued that the motivations of the Caucus de la Freedom are political, potentially putting the group in a better position before the elections of the governor next year.
Wyoming legislators have already adopted electoral reform bills, but this year’s push is more intense than usual. He arrives in the middle of a change to the right in the legislative assembly and continued to question the integrity of the elections by President Donald Trump and his allies.
The bills range from new restrictions on the process of registering voters and prohibiting voting boxes, the prohibition to vote of the classified choice and to reduce the use of student identifiers and medicaid and medicare insurance cards as acceptable forms of voter identification.
Two of the bills were included in the “Five and Dime” plan of the Freedom Caucus and quickly crossed the house. Both tackles the process of registering voters.
Another bill would codify the recounts must be made by hand, and came in response to the general election of the county of Weston, Snafu now under investigation by the governor.
Two of the most radical bills died at the end of last week when republican legislators – including several members of the Freedom Caucus and learned – have obtained cold feet and killed mirror invoices to ban electronic electoral equipment.
“We have a lot of unanswered questions about how to implement this implementation to which I had not answered,” said representative Nina Webber, R-Cody.
As with all legislation, the list of bills faces a time glove this week because Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are the respective cuts for the first, second and third votes in the Chamber where they were presented.
At the time of publication, 30 invoices remained at stake.
Different viewsLegislators who are not part of Freedom Caucus have a different perspective on what must be repaired. They indicate the long lines that voters have experienced during the last elections and political groups outside the state that spend large to fill in local mailboxes of inaccurate information.
“It is interesting during this session that we spend countless hours in the security of our elections. And it is a question of tightening where you can go and how you can fill your ballot, or you cannot throw it in a box or something else, “said senator Bill Landen, R-Casper, to the Committee judicial of the Senate.
At the time, the panel discussed the joint resolution of the Senate 8, “political expenses”.
With the sponsorship of more than half of the Senate, the resolution would ask the Congress to propose a constitutional amendment to allow states to establish limits for political contributions.
“In fact, in my opinion, this kind of activity threatens the security of our elections here in Wyoming, when you really get there,” said Landen, before adding that he has heard of this problem more than any other of its voters.
Being a resolution, the bill lacks teeth. But that sends a message, however, said Landen.
“If something like that has gone through two organizations in this legislature, it could put some weight behind a suggested temporary subject for the corporate committee to really examine this,” he said.
The resolution adopted Senate 17-13 with an excuse on Tuesday, but not before a passionate repression of Senator Darin Smith, a republican of Cheyenne.
“Voting for that is like voting to abandon your weapons because you were told that Utopia would follow,” said Smith.
Afton Dan Dockstader Republican Senator adopted a different approach.
“During this last legislative election, postcards were sent with information that was not truthful. It was my understanding (that) was dark money while supporting this, “said Dokstader. “Why would we support something like that?” Why not support evidence and transparency? »»
Dockstader did not specify the postcards in question. The issue of erroneous sender aroused controversy in last year’s elections and even led to a defamation trial against a political action committee with links with the Caucus de Freedom.
Democratic bills deadThe two bills linked to the elections with Democratic legislators as their main sponsors died on Monday when they were not considered before the deadline.
Bill 178 of the House, “the work allowance for the vote”, would have doubled the hours that employees have the right to have work to vote.
“This year was one of the first years that I voted on election day, and I was queuing myself for more than two and a half hours,” said representative Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, to the companies of The Chamber, in the elections and policies and policies Committee of Subdivisions.
“And I looked at dozens of people leaving the room. Many were talking about the reason they had to leave, some of whom said: “I need to go back to work,” said Provenza.
The bill would also have extended the work allowance during the early Wyoming voting period. After his death, the main sponsor of the bill, the representative Trey Sherwood, D-Laramie, brought a successful amendment to an electoral bill to extend the work allowance.
As for the reasons why the Caucus Freedom brought so many bills to change the state elections, Sherwood told journalists that there was a simple explanation.
“This is the Freedom Caucus March at the Governor’s office,” she said.
A bill in particular would reorganize this race in 2026 by creating an election of runoff for the five best elected offices of Wyoming.
The draft elections for the speaker runoffNeiman presented Bill 249 of the Chamber, the “runoff”, to ensure that the next State Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer of the State, State Varifier, Superintendent of Public instruction and federal offices holders only go to the general elections if they earn more than 50% of elementary voting.
The state being a “republican supermajarity”, told Neiman to the Chamber’s Societies Committee, most of the races are decided in primary school. But an overcrowded primary field can lead to a victory in which the winner collects less than 50% of the votes, and this is a problem on the part of Neiman.
“I have heard where there could be potentially eight candidates in the race for this next governor, and this field seems to be constantly growing up,” he said.
Neiman, in fact, is one of the names currently floated for the race, alongside the Secretary of State Chuck Gray, the treasurer of the Curt Meier and meaning. Bo Biteman and Cheri Steinmetz.
At 42 pages, the bill makes considerable changes to the State Elections Code. This includes the deployment of the primary elections for the five best offices and the federal delegation from the third Tuesday from August to first Tuesday in May. In this way, if no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, the two main contenders will present themselves in August.
All other primary electoral races would be maintained until the traditional month of August.
“The Office of the Secretary of State indicates that the cost of carrying out an election of runoff at the level of the State is unknown,” according to the tax note of the bill.
Meanwhile, the bill includes a credit of $ 2 million for an “electoral account of runoff” at the office of the Secretary of State.
While Neiman said that his intention was not to have an impact on legislative races with the bill, representative Rob Giner, R-Cheyenne, stressed that the measure in fact would increase legislators until May .
With the support of Neiman, Ginerger brought a successful amendment to clarify the initial intention of the speaker.
The bill adopted second reading in the House on Tuesday, February 11.
Wyofile is an independent non -profit press organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policies.
This story was published on February 11, 2025.
