Lawmakers file whopping 45 bills to remake Wyoming elections

CHEYENNE—Wyoming lawmakers filed a whopping 45 election-related bills in the 2025 general session — accounting for about 8% of all legislation in both the House and the Senate this year. 

Most of the bills are sponsored by Wyoming Freedom Caucus members and allies, who say voters gave them a loud and clear mandate via the very system they now seek to reform. 

Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, a Freedom Caucus Republican from Hulett, told WyoFile “we’ve got good elections.”

“But we can do a better job,” he said, adding that the legislation isn’t so much about overhauling the system as it is about improvement. 

“Predominantly, these are proactive measures that are trying to make sure that our elections are safe,” Neiman said.

Critics say Wyoming’s elections are already secure given how few cases of election fraud are historically prosecuted. They also point to the state canvassing board that unanimously voted to certify the results of both the 2024 primary and general elections. 

One Democrat argued the Freedom Caucus’ motivations are political, potentially putting the group in a better position ahead of next year’s gubernatorial election.

Wyoming lawmakers have passed election reform bills before, but this year’s push is more intense than usual. It comes amid a rightward shift in the Legislature and continued questioning of election integrity by President Donald Trump and his allies.

The bills range from new restrictions on the voter registration process and prohibiting ballot drop boxes, to banning ranked-choice voting and curtailing the use of student IDs and Medicaid and Medicare insurance cards as acceptable forms of voter identification. 

Two of the bills were included in the Freedom Caucus’ “Five and Dime” plan and quickly moved through the House. Both address the voter registration process. 

Another bill would codify recounts must be done by hand, and came in response to Weston County’s general election snafu now under investigation by the governor. 

Two of the most sweeping bills died late last week when Republican lawmakers — including several Freedom Caucus members and endorsees — got cold feet and killed mirror bills to ban electronic election equipment. 

“We have a lot of unanswered questions on how to get this implemented that I didn’t have answered,” Rep. Nina Webber, R-Cody, said. 

As with all legislation, the slate of bills are facing a gauntlet of deadlines this week as Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are the respective cutoffs for first, second and third votes in the chamber where they were introduced. 

At publishing time, 30 bills remained in play. 

Differing views

Lawmakers who aren’t part of the Freedom Caucus have a different perspective on what needs fixing. They point to the long lines voters experienced in the last election and out-of-state political groups spending big to fill local mailboxes with inaccurate information. 

“It’s interesting during this session that we’re spending countless hours on the security of our elections. And it’s all about tightening up where you can go and how you can fill out your ballot, or you can’t throw it in a box or whatever,” Sen. Bill Landen, R-Casper, told the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

At the time, the panel was discussing Senate Joint Resolution 8, “Political expenditures.”

With the sponsorship of more than half of the Senate, the resolution would ask Congress to propose a constitutional amendment to allow states to establish limits on political contributions.

“This, actually, in my opinion, this kind of activity threatens the security of our elections here in Wyoming, when you really come right down to it,” Landen said, before adding he’s heard about this issue more than any other from his constituents. 

Being a resolution, the bill lacks teeth. But it sends a message nevertheless, Landen said. 

“If something like this went through two bodies of this Legislature, it might put a little bit of weight behind a suggested interim topic for the Corporations Committee to really take a look at this,” he said. 

The resolution passed the Senate 17-13 with one excused on Tuesday, but not before some impassioned pushback from Sen. Darin Smith, a Cheyenne Republican. 

“Voting for this is like voting to give up your guns because you were told Utopia would follow,” Smith said. 

Afton Republican Sen. Dan Dockstader took a different approach. 

“In this last legislative election, there were postcards sent out with information that was not truthful. It’s my understanding [that] was dark money backing that,” Dockstader said. “Why would we support something like that? Why not support proof and transparency?”

Dockstader didn’t otherwise specify the postcards at issue. The issue of erroneous mailers sparked controversy during last year’s election and even resulted in an ongoing defamation lawsuit against a political action committee with ties to the Freedom Caucus.

Dead Democratic bills 

The two election-related bills with Democratic lawmakers as their main sponsors died Monday when they were not considered before deadline. 

House Bill 178, “Work allowance for voting,” would have doubled the hours employees are entitled to have off work to vote. 

“This year was one of the first years that I voted on the day of the election, and I stood in line for over two and a half hours,” Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, told the House Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee.

“And I watched dozens of people leave the room. Many were talking in line about why they needed to leave, some of which said ‘I need to get back to work,’” Provenza said. 

The bill would have also extended the work allowance to Wyoming’s early voting period. After it died, the bill’s main sponsor, Rep. Trey Sherwood, D-Laramie, brought a successful amendment to a runoff election bill to expand the work allowance. 

As for why the Freedom Caucus brought so many bills to change the state’s elections, Sherwood told reporters there’s a simple explanation. 

“It’s the Freedom Caucus march to the governor’s office,” she said. 

One bill in particular would revamp that race in 2026 by creating a runoff election for Wyoming’s top five elected offices. 

The speaker’s runoff election bill 

Neiman brought House Bill 249, “Runoff elections,” to ensure the state’s next governor, secretary of state, state treasurer, state auditor, superintendent of public instruction and federal office holders only move on to the general election if they earn more than 50% of the vote in the primary. 

With the state being a “Republican supermajority,” Neiman told the House Corporations Committee, most races are decided in the primary. But a crowded primary field can result in a victory in which the winner collects less than 50% of the vote, and that’s a problem in Neiman’s view. 

“I’ve already heard where there could be potentially eight candidates in this upcoming governor’s race, and that field consistently seems to grow,” he said. 

Neiman, in fact, is among the names currently being floated for the race, alongside Secretary of State Chuck Gray, State Treasurer Curt Meier and Sens. Bo Biteman and Cheri Steinmetz. 

At 42 pages, the bill makes considerable changes to the state’s elections code. Primarily, that includes moving the primary election for the top five offices and the federal delegation from the third Tuesday in August to the first Tuesday in May. That way, if no one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, the top two contenders will run again in August. 

All other primary election races would be kept to the traditional month of August. 

“The Secretary of State’s Office indicates that the cost of conducting a statewide runoff election is unknown,” according to the bill’s fiscal note. 

Meanwhile, the bill includes a $2 million appropriation for a “Runoff Election Account” in the secretary of state’s office. 

While Neiman said his intention was not to impact legislative races with the bill, Rep. Rob Geringer, R-Cheyenne, pointed out that the measure in fact would bump lawmakers up to May. 

With Neiman’s support, Geringer brought a successful amendment to clarify the speaker’s original intent. 

The bill passed second reading in the House on Tuesday.