Senate advances election restriction bill through Agriculture Committee and after-hours vote
Wyoming Senate leaders pressured members to re-assign a bill that would restrict voting in primary elections to a more favorable committee. After clearing the Agriculture Committee with a 5 - 0 vote, Senators debated the bill late Wednesday night after almost everyone had left the Capitol.
These tactics resemble past years’ efforts to ram through unpopular legislation backed by influential politicians.
Bill advances to limit voting in Wyoming primary elections
A bill that would require Wyoming voters to register with a political party months in advance of a primary election passed an introduction vote in the Senate last week. Currently, thousands of Wyoming voters register on the same day or shortly in advance of elections. The new law would bar voters from participating in the 2022 primary unless they register before May 12.
Grassroots pushback prompts Wyo. lawmakers to think twice about splitting Southside Cheyenne’s vote
An amendment to the “redistricting” bill in the Wyoming House on Wednesday would have been a major setback for voting rights advocates for Southside Cheyenne. But Laramie County lawmakers responding to their constituents vowed to bring a fix on Thursday.
Proposed election map would force 16 Wyo. legislators into runoffs
Sitting legislators often fight to ensure “redistricting” does not pit them against their colleagues in upcoming elections. But the current election district map that looks headed for the 2022 session will force 16 lawmakers to run against each other if they want to stay in the Legislature. We’ll see who comes forth to ask for squiggly lines to be drawn around their homes to protect their seats.
New proposed Wyoming voting map gerrymanders Albany and Laramie Counties
As “redistricting” proceeds, Wyoming lawmakers have adopted a new draft map that gives outsized influence to rural lawmakers, decreases the number of viable Democratic seats in Albany County, and zig-zags around the homes of some Laramie County legislators in an embarrassing display of gerrymandering.
Cheyenne is a gerrymandered mess
Lawmakers have drawn voting district lines in Laramie County so that a large bloc of Democrat-leaning neighborhoods are split between five House districts, resulting in an all-GOP Cheyenne delegation. There is also racial gerrymandering splitting the Latino vote.
County clerks: The puppetmasters of Wyoming redistricting
A key part of redrawing Wyoming's voting districts is determining where "communities of interest" exist. No one plays a bigger role in that process than your local county clerk.
Redistricting is a boring, bonkers, sometimes corrupt process in Wyoming you need to know about
Every 10 years the Wyoming Legislature redraws the voting map that determines which lawmakers represent which people. On its face, “redistricting” is dull. But it’s a critically important process that often invites creativity—as well as creativity’s relatives, corruption and abuse.
The silver lining of Wyoming’s new voter ID law: A path to online registration
Wyoming’s new voter ID law will suppress turnout, as similar laws have in other states. But by forcing Wyoming residents to show IDs at the polls, the new law also eliminates the main argument against Wyoming adopting online voter registration, which increases youth voter turnout.
Wyoming lawmakers use “voter fraud” hysteria to push ID bill
A bill to require Wyoming voters to present IDs at the polls will pass this session after several years of failure. As the Wyoming State GOP outlines plans to ban mail-in voting and other restrictions, the measure appears the first step in a larger campaign to limit elections in the state.
Registering to vote at the polls in Wyoming is great … until it’s not
The main way to register to vote in Wyoming is at the polls. But a huge portion of the state’s electorate is avoiding the polls altogether during COVID-19. As the state’s aggressive voter purge laws disenrolled massive numbers of Wyoming voters, we’re left to wonder whether our registration laws need an update.
FIVE FACTS: Wyoming embraces mail-in voting (sort of)
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Buchanan to send applications for absentee ballots to all registered Wyoming voters. County clerks across the state have received record requests, moving Wyoming in a direction toward mail-in voting that's already widely embraced across the West.