Practical or political?

For some, it may seem that one election cycle bleeds right into another especially as several current members of the Wyoming Legislature have made early announcements of running against Representative Liz Cheney in 2022. 

A piece of legislation currently in the Wyoming Senate, however, would add another election date to Wyoming’s calendar and create additional work for both the Secretary of State and county clerks throughout Wyoming.

During their rescheduled March 18 meeting, the Board of Carbon County Commissioners (BOCCC) were informed of Senate File 145 by Carbon County Clerk Gwynn Bartlett.

The bill, titled “election runoffs” proposes a date for runoff elections in Wyoming among both federal and state elected offices.

At the time of the update, the bill had just passed out of the senate corporations committee on a 4-1 vote. Since then, however, it passed out of the senate appropriations committee on a 4-1 vote as well and had passed 2nd reading in the Senate on March 22.

Under Senate File 145, it is proposed to create a new date for the primary election in Wyoming—which is held on the 3rd Tuesday in August—while setting the date for the runoff election in its place. As it currently reads, the new date for the primary election would be the Tuesday after the 1st Monday in May.

According to Bartlett, an estimate of $1.5 million was given for administration of a run-off election. 

“The $1.5 million was what they determined was the statewide cost for one election based on our primary (election) from 2020,” said Bartlett. “So, it is a concern for clerks, the cost. I think there’s a lot of support.”

Among those providing their support for Senate File 145 are Donald Trump, Jr., son of former President Donald Trump. On March 9, the younger Trump tweeted “Any Republican in Wyoming who does Liz Cheney’s bidding and opposes SF145 is turning their back on my father and the entire America First movement.”

Under Senate File 145, a runoff election would be held if the top two candidates in a primary election did not receive more than 50 percent of the primary vote.

In the 2018 Primary Election, for example, Mark Gordon received approximately 33 percent of Republican votes and would have had to face Foster Friess in the case of a run-off election.

“I know these legislators are receiving hundreds and hundreds of emails daily looking for support for this,” Bartlett said. “The clerk’s association is not opposing this. We’re just commenting … that we cannot administer this on the redistricting years. I think it’s fine on any other year but, on a redistricting year including 2022 and again in 2032, the timeline doesn’t work.”

Bartlett stated that, in those years when the legislature goes through the redistricting process, the final districts aren’t known until after the legislature adjourns their session. With most legislative sessions beginning in mid-February and running until mid-March, it would provide timeline issues for those assigned to oversee elections.

“We wouldn’t get the district set until the end of the session, typically, and then there’s quite a process that clerks have to do to lay out those boundaries, determine our ballot splits, change voters into other House districts, potentially, or Senate districts, change their addresses in our WyoReg voting registration system, work with GIS personnel to remap all that and make sure we have it right,” said Bartlett. “It’s just not possible to do that when absentees for an early May primary have to go out by mid-March. So, we can’t do that when we don’t know what those districts are.”

Commissioner Sue Jones, an often outspoken proponent of maximum participation in elections and government, expressed her belief that the issue facing Wyoming couldn’t be solved with a run-off election.

“Right now they need more people running for the offices rather than run-off because there’s so many unopposed people that this is sort of irrelevant,” said Jones. “Certain counties will be doing it and certain (counties) won’t.”

While Senate File 145 won’t affect county or municipal elections, it would apply to federal elections—such as United States Senator and United States Representative—and statewide offices starting with Governor and down to candidates for the state legislature. In many districts, such as Senate District 11, candidates ran unopposed.

As discussion continued, Bartlett stated that while the $1.5 million estimated for a run-off election was on the state level, the potential cost on the county level would be approximately $15,000 with that cost being potentially shouldered by the counties.

An additional section to Senate File 145 puts the responsibility of scheduling primary elections and other election timelines on the Secretary of State and county clerks should the bill pass.

“It’d probably be questionable if we were flush,” said Commissioner Travis Moore. “When we’re looking at cuts and we’re looking at an additional appropriation for something that’s not even based in practicality is ridiculous.”

The next meeting of the Board of Carbon County Commissioners will be at 9 a.m. on April 6 at the Carbon County Courthouse in Rawlins.