FREMONT, SUBLETTE AND SWEETWATER COUNTIES—Voters streamed in and out of the Bob Carey Memorial Fieldhouse at Lander Valley High School early Tuesday, accompanied by the sound of thwacking pickleballs from the nearby courts.
At this polling place, the morning crowd was in high spirits, with many people gathering outside to chat. Several voters used canes or walkers to reach the polls. Dick and Julie Lefevre opted to ride their tandem bicycle.
The Lander residents consider voting a civic duty that ensures their concerns are heard, Dick Lefevre said. His wife added that it’s important to vote for candidates with integrity. One key issue for her, she explained, was “the influence of outsider groups coming to Wyoming” to impose their beliefs and pour their money into the state’s politics.
As Fremont County residents, they were inundated with political mailers, some with false claims and misrepresentations, they said.
“They made me boiling mad,” Julie Lefevre said.
She was not alone. Amid a pitched battle between the two factions of Wyoming Republicans, voters this primary season received a slew of mailers that were sometimes sensational, sometimes misleading and, in the eyes of at least two GOP lawmakers, sometimes libelous.
“It shouldn’t be that way,” voter Keith Allen said of the mailers that were, in his opinion, “overstepping bounds” and taking words out of context. “It’s an injustice to politics,” he said.
Allen shared his frustration outside the polling station at the Sweetwater Events Complex in Rock Spring. He expressed dismay at the mass distribution of mailers that he believes mischaracterized several GOP incumbents’ positions.
One set of mailers produced by the political action committee of the hard-line Wyoming Freedom Caucus accused multiple Republican primary opponents of voting to remove Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump from the ballot, despite the fact that no such vote has ever taken place in the Wyoming Legislature.
Those mailers prompted incumbent Sweetwater County Republican Reps. J.T. Larson and Cody Wylie to sue the Freedom Caucus’ political action committee for defamation. In Fremont County, Reps. Lloyd Larsen (R-Lander) and Ember Oakley (R-Riverton) responded with a cease-and-desist letter.
While the caucus argued the mailers were fair play, some voters remained skeptical.
“What we’re out here for is the best for Wyoming, and not the slander,” Allen said. With the mailers, “we’re bringing the national level to the state level.”
Other mailers also raised eyebrows during the campaign. An out-of-state political action committee sent texts and mailers to Wyoming voters that were sometimes inaccurate. In one notable example, the group used a Virginia man’s photo in place of a candidate of the same name running in Wyoming. That also prompted a cease-and-desist letter.
Ann Huhnke was at the Lander polling place with her grandson, 19-year-old Will Edlund, who was voting for the first time. Huhnke also received a pile of mailers, which were “not necessarily appreciated,” she said. “They were extremely negative.”
Lisa Kisling of Milford said she too received mailers, but ignored them. She looks up voting records and does her own homework to guide her decisions, she said, and cares about issues like balancing the budget and keeping oil and gas drilling going on American soil.
Three voters at three different Sublette County polling locations reported putting no weight whatsoever on mailers that attacked Rep. Albert Sommers (R-Pinedale), the outgoing speaker of the House now vying for a seat in the Wyoming Senate.
“They make good fire starter,” said Mike Pompy, a 77-year-old longtime Big Piney resident.
Outside the Daniel schoolhouse, a Cora resident named Doug, who didn’t want his last name used, said that misleading mailers never leave the post office where he collects his mail.
“Goes right into the trash,” he told WyoFile. “About everybody running for office, I know them anyway.”
Meantime, Pinedale resident Carol Radakovich went into the primary with strong feelings about races that would represent her interest in the statehouse. Her post office box, like almost everyone else’s in town, had been stuffed with mailers slamming some candidates.
“I chucked them,” Radakovich said of the mailers. “I don’t need someone else to form my opinion.”