Editor:

The most recent attempt to address a non-issue related to election security in Wyoming was Governor Gordon’s recent executive order (Order 2024-11) dealing with voting by non-U.S. citizens. Voting by non-U.S. citizens is prohibited by federal law and is not allowed on the state or local level in Wyoming.

Despite the lack of any evidence indicating that voting by non-U.S. citizens has occurred in Wyoming (other than one case in Campbell County during the 2020 election), the executive order stokes unfounded fear that non-U.S. citizens might try to register and vote in Wyoming.

The proof of residency and citizen verification rules proposed by Secretary of State Chuck Gray, in the absence of data indicating that Wyoming has a problem with fraudulent voting, are simply means to make it more difficult to register to vote in Wyoming.

Given the low and declining rate of voter registration (54% of eligible voters in the most recent primary) and voting (27% of eligible voters in the most recent primary) in Wyoming, you would think that we would be doing everything possible to encourage registration and voting.

Instead of imposing unnecessary voter registration requirements, we should be researching and implementing automatic voter registration whenever there is an interaction with the Wyoming Department of Motor Vehicles — 20 states allow this! We should be exploring online voter registration — 40 states allow this! We should be providing multilingual voter registration forms — other states do this!

Again, in the absence of evidence that there is illegal voting in Wyoming, the voter identification law implemented for the first time in the recent primary was unnecessary for voters registered in advance of election day. The only thing this law did was create a burden on people who may have forgotten to bring their identification to the polling place — some of whom probably left and did not return to vote.

Having personally observed the testing of our voting machines prior to the primary election, having worked as an election judge, and having participated in the post-election audit of these machines, I can attest to the security and reliability of our election process in Uinta County. If errors occurred, they were the result of human error, not a problem with the election equipment.

The Uinta County Clerk, her employees and all the election judges do an incredible job — one for which they should be praised, not questioned. The call for hand counting of all ballots by some in Wyoming should cause you to shudder given the increased possibility of human error, extensive time delays and incredible expense. If it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it!

And while some try to create doubt about election integrity, don’t let them conflate election issues with the immigration issues that exist in our country. And don’t let them demonize non-U.S. citizens, many of whom are our friends and neighbors, just because they have immigrated to Wyoming in search of a better life. We are better than that!

Tim Beppler

Evanston