Secretary of State Chuck Gray is seeking to make good on a campaign promise to eliminate ballot boxes from the state, but the group representing the state’s county clerks maintains the decision is up to local election officials.
Gray, Wyoming‘s top elections official, focused his 2022 campaign on election integrity, telling voters that Wyoming had “tremendous problems” with its elections. The polls, Gray said, were partly to blame, an echo of widespread and unsubstantiated claims that they are vulnerable to voter fraud.
Gray is now urging local election officials to get rid of the drop boxes ahead of absentee voting starting next month, going so far as to say the drop boxes are illegal under state statute.
“Yeah No I believe drop boxes represent a secure or legal basis for absentee voting,” Gray wrote in a letter Wednesday to county clerks. “For this reason, they should No “It will be used in the 2024 elections and beyond.”
While Gray’s letter may be narrowly worded, that’s probably what it comes down to since it’s up to county clerks to decide whether to use drop boxes. The Wyoming County Clerks Association reiterated that discretion in response to Gray’s letter.
“We maintain that the use of ballot boxes as a ballot delivery method is safe and authorized by law,” the association wrote in its response.
While the controversy surrounding ballot boxes may be relatively new, thanks in large part to the discredited movie “2,000 Mules,” whose distributor recently apologized and pulled it from their platforms, ballot boxes themselves are not new to Wyoming. In fact, several counties used drop boxes long before the 2020 election.
In his letter, Gray also announced that he was rescinding several directives related to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of which did not involve ballot drop boxes.
Background
This isn’t the first time Wyoming’s elections director has tried to get rid of ballot boxes.
In October 2022, less than a month before the general election, then-Secretary of State Karl Allred made an informal request to county clerks.
“I do not wish to disrupt or cause confusion in the voting process already in progress, but I will ask that you make an honest assessment as to whether or not suspending the use of your mailbox would cause any disruption to your voters. ”Allred wrote in a letter.
Allred, who was appointed in September 2022 to fill a vacancy left by Ed Buchanan, acknowledged that “there have been no reported problems with the use of mailboxes in Wyoming,” in his letter.
“But that does not alleviate the potential for abuse or destruction of ballots through the use of fire or other means,” Allred wrote.
Lacking legal force, Allred’s letter was nothing more than a friendly request. In the end, none of the seven counties using ballot drop boxes at the time took action.
2,000 mules
As a candidate for secretary of state, Gray told WyoFile that “we must ban the ballot box.”
“The documentary ‘2,000 Mules’ has shown how dangerous these mailboxes are,” Gray said in a June 2022 interview. “And it’s just a big problem.”
Last week, the conservative media company behind the movie “2,000 Mules” and a book by the same name apologized and said it removed the film from its platforms and will stop distributing the film or book. When asked if the ad influenced his decision, Gray said WyoFile was making “misleading and out of context statements.”
When asked to elaborate, Gray criticized WyoFile for its coverage of his 2022 campaign.
In February, Gray did not respond to WyoFile’s request for comment when the nonprofit organization on whose claims the film was based admitted in court filings that it has no evidence to support its claims.
Other details
Wyoming’s election code specifies that absentee ballots must be “mailed or delivered to the clerk,” but Gray interprets it differently than his predecessor, Buchanan, now a district court judge.
“The plain language of the statute, which strikes a balance between allowing voters to cast their votes conveniently and maintaining the security and integrity of the early voting process, does not authorize the delivery of an absentee ballot to an inanimate object, such as a ballot no staff. box,” Gray wrote in his letter.
The fact that most county clerks have not used drop boxes in past elections is “legal evidence” of why drop boxes are not permitted in state statutes, their letter states.
“The election code requires uniformity in its application, and the fact that some counties are deviating from the uniform and clear application of Title 22 is also problematic,” Gray added.
In some cases, however, the electoral code leaves decisions in the hands of locally elected officials, the clerks’ association said in its response, pointing to electronic election notebooks, election equipment, voting centers, district boundaries elections and the processing of absentee votes.
According to the association, mailboxes are another example.
“The voices of our constituents as a whole help guide our decisions on this and many other important election administration decisions,” the association wrote. “Our great state offers countless differences from one corner to the next and for that reason a general solution does not always serve these different populations in the most practical way.”
Absentee voting for Wyoming’s primary elections begins July 23 for most residents.
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