Crossing over

As we draw ever closer to Wyoming’s primary elections, the term “crossover voting” is on the tongues of Republicans and Democrats alike.

For those who are unaware, crossover voting is when someone casts a ballot who is not a member of their political party. In states such as Wyoming, where we have closed primaries, it involves an additional step in which a person must fill out paperwork—often at the election polls on the day of the election—to switch parties.

Anecdotally, it has often been Democrats in the Cowboy State who have switched parties to vote on a Republican primary ticket. This has been met with ire from the Wyoming Republican Party and led to legislation being introduced in the 2022 Wyoming Legislature to ban the practice. This legislation had the backing of former President Donald Trump and while it cleared the Senate, it failed in the House.

The reasons for crossover voting are likely as individual as each person who does it, but can be broken down into a few primary—no pun intended—reasons.

Carbon County, for example, historically had a purple hue to it when the coal mines in Hanna were operational and unions were more common. Recently, however, the county has become more red and while there is still a Carbon County Democratic Party, the slate of candidates for said party are limited. In 2020, two partisan offices on the county level were Democrats: the Carbon County Sheriff and the Carbon County Treasurer.

This year, there will be only one.

This leads to one reason why crossover voting is seen in Wyoming; the lack of options for one party which is quite often the Democratic Party. This, of course, can lead to several other conversations on a variety of subjects. The Carbon County Dems could be more aggressive or assertive in finding candidates to run for these offices, but statistically speaking many of the younger Democrats appear to be either leaving the county or leaving the state altogether.

Another conversation, and one which would probably have to be taken up at the state level, is whether or not many of these county offices—treasurer, clerk, sheriff, commissioner, coroner or attorney—should even be partisan at all.

There are two other reasons why crossover voting is seen in Wyoming, which are discussed in “Analysis of Crossover and Strategic Voting” by R. Michael Alvarez and Jonathan Nagler written in 1999. In this 50 page analysis, two reasons for crossover voting are “sincere voting” and “second-best voting”.

In sincere voting, a person registered to one party crosses over to the opposing party because they believe their preferred candidate is the best in the field. By crossing over, they are trying to ensure the candidate will make it to the general election.

In second-best voting, a person could feel their preferred candidate in the primary election is an obvious victory. Rather than “waste their vote”, they cross over to the opposing party to ensure the candidate from that party is “the best available candidate from the lot”.

A fourth reason for crossover voting is known as “party raiding” and is one which doesn’t appear to be commonplace, but has been encouraged in presidential elections with no success.

During the 2008 Democratic primaries, the late Rush Limbaugh announced “Operation Chaos” in which he encouraged Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton to politically weaken Barack Obama (“Top of the Ticket”. The Los Angeles Times. April 29, 2008). In the 2012 Republican primaries—specifically Michigan—automated messages were made to registered Democrats in the state encouraging them to vote for Rick Santorum over Mitt Romney (“Could Democrats Decide the Winner in Michigan? ABC News. February 28, 2012).

Following the 2018 Primary Election, the late Foster Friess—then a gubernatorial candidate—alleged crossover voting was the reason he lost to Mark Gordon. Friess received 29,842 votes while Gordon received 38,951 votes according to data from the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office.

With no laws on the books to prevent crossover voting in the 2022 Primary Election, one can assume the practice will continue. Whether there’s enough people crossing over to influence results on the state level is still largely up for debate.