Wyoming House bills push for hand-counting ballots in flurry of election-related legislation

Yahoo

31-01-2025

CHEYENNE — With dozens of election-related bills filed in the Wyoming House of Representatives this session, at least three are pushing for hand-counting votes in elections.
However, one of the three bills, House Bill 217, 'Random hand count audits of election results,' died in the House Appropriations Committee Thursday morning. This bill would have given the secretary of state authority to select one random precinct to do a hand-count audit of the votes after an election.
County clerks told committee members this bill would create a strain on time, staff and resources. Fremont County Clerk Julie Freese said Natrona County recently recounted more than 34,000 ballots from the last election. This single recount took over eight hours, she said, using a voting machine and a staff of 17 workers. The cost of the recount was approximately $2,500.
'That was just one office,' Freese said.
Wyoming County Clerks Association lobbyist Mary Lankford, who also worked as a county clerk in Sublette County, asked to extend the time limit from one week to 30 days, given the volume of work county clerks would undergo to hand count the ballots. Freese said the 30-day time frame was more than reasonable.
Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, acknowledged that HB 217 could be duplicative of a provision in his own bill, HB 232, 'Elections-hand counting for recounts,' which passed House Appropriations earlier this week. The House speaker pro tempore added that he didn't want to further burden county clerks.
'I hear the people's concern,' Haroldson said.
'I do agree with you that, if we're not careful, we load you guys' backside so hard that you're struggling to try to get it all accomplished.'
Although HB 217 died in committee for lack of a motion, Haroldson's bill passed its third and final reading in the House, and it will now cross over to the Senate for introduction. HB 232 requires an automatic hand recount in federal, statewide and legislative office races with a 2% or less difference in the county. This same automatic hand recount applies to all 23 counties if there is a 1% or less difference in statewide results for state or federal office races.
Local races with a 2% or less difference between the winning and losing candidates have the option of either a hand or electronic voting machine recount under HB 232.
However, a third bill, HB 215, 'Prohibition on electronic voting equipment,' pushes to get rid of electronic voting machines altogether. The bill, sponsored by Wyoming Freedom Caucus member Rep. Scott Smith, R-Lingle, would prohibit the use of electronic voting machines and establish a hand-counting tabulation process, effective July 1. It creates an exception to allow people with disabilities to use an electronic voting machine, in accordance with the Help America Vote Act.
This bill will be discussed Friday in the House Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee.
Lobbyists against HB 232 argued hand-counting increases the risk of human error. Civics307 blogger Gail Symons told lawmakers Monday that counting by voting machine is less expensive, more accurate and faster to process.
'I believe (HB 232) is another of the many, many bills that address a problem that does not exist,' Symons said. 'I believe it is inherently flawed — flawed in the assumption of a problem, flawed in presenting a solution that actually creates a problem.'
Equality State Policy Center policy director Marissa Carpio said a University of Wyoming study found that 94% of Wyomingites were confident in the state's elections. She said the distrust of elections is due to widespread messaging, rather than coming from concerned voters.
A ballot-counting issue in Weston County during the 2024 general election, which is still under investigation, was brought up both Monday and Thursday. The results of this election, showing an undervote for one of the candidates, alerted the Secretary of State's Office to conduct an audit.
It was a unique situation that called for a hand recount, because of a ballot misprint. Freese said the voting machines did the job they were designed for by not counting the wrong ballots.
'The machine did its job,' Freese said. 'It saw the ones that were correct. The ballots that were not correct … those did not get counted because the bubble was in the wrong place.'