Weston County Clerk Becky Hadlock kept her job following a state investigation earlier this year into an error by her office that caused inaccurate vote counts during the 2024 election. But she’s now the subject of twin inquiries by two branches of Wyoming government.
Four of Hadlock’s constituents submitted official complaints to Gov. Mark Gordon’s office on Monday.
Meanwhile, a legislative committee announced Tuesday it will pursue a court order requiring the clerk to appear before the panel after she did not comply with a subpoena to attend a September meeting in Casper.
The issue dates back to the 2024 general election when Hadlock caused an initial ballot miscount in her county’s results after using the wrong ballots, causing a dramatic undercount in the vote for Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, who was running unopposed. Ultimately, a hand count sorted out the results, but the issue remained unresolved for many Weston County voters, including several who asked the Wyoming State Canvassing Board not to certify the results of the election.
“I would like to state that if you certify this election, knowing that one county found flipped votes, and no other counties have been checked by hand, that you’re damaging the integrity of Wyoming,” Weston County resident Susan Love told the board at the time.
Love is now among the four local voters who submitted the new formal complaint to Gordon’s office.
“The complaints outline two new charges regarding the Weston County Clerk: Clerk Hadlock’s filing of a false post election audit following the 2024 general election and Clerk Hadlock’s refusal to comply with a legislative subpoena issued by the Management Audit Committee in violation of Wyoming law,” the governor’s office said.
This is the second time Gordon has been tasked with investigating Hadlock over her actions in the 2024 election. In December, Love and seven other voters asked Gordon to begin the process of removing Hadlock from office, alleging acts of misconduct and malfeasance.
In May, however, the governor decided that “Hadlock made many serious mistakes in the 2024 Weston County elections, her actions do not rise to the level of misconduct or malfeasance, as I understand the meaning of those terms in this situation,” Gordon wrote in his decision. “I do not believe there is a clear path to proving guilt.”
The process, as laid out in state statute, will now require Gordon to once more determine whether to recommend that the attorney general seek the clerk’s removal in district court. State law does not allow the governor to unilaterally remove Hadlock from office.
“Given the very serious nature of the potential consequences, which is the removal of an official duly elected by the voters of Weston County, preserving the objectivity and integrity of this process is crucial,” Gordon’s office said in a statement. “Consequently, the Governor will have no comment on this investigation while it is ongoing, focusing instead on reviewing and determining relevant facts.”
When Gordon will come to a decision is unclear, but his general counsel, Betsy Anderson, told the Management Audit Committee on Tuesday that she personally hoped the inquiry would be completed by the end of the year.
Tuesday meeting
In July, the Management Audit Committee formed a subcommittee to compel testimony from Hadlock and to produce a report on Weston County’s 2024 general election.
That report was presented to the committee Tuesday.
“When I brought this forward, I had some objectives as an oversight committee, and that was to find out exactly what happened during that election and see if there was some way of preventing that from happening in the future,” Gillette Republican Rep. Chris Knapp said at the meeting.
What stood out to many committee members was a post-election audit Hadlock submitted to the secretary of state’s office that included false information.
County clerks are required by law to perform a post-election audit designed to measure election accuracy using a statistical model. The Wyoming State Canvassing Board uses the audit to decide whether to certify results.
Hadlock, however, submitted an initial post-election audit showing no errors despite the discrepancy in the results in Neiman’s race as well as a county commissioner race.
That, taken with other findings the subcommittee was able to review, Cody Republican Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams said, “it certainly suggests that an attempt was made by Clerk Hadlock to cover up the errors that were made with the false post-election audit.”
“That’s my own personal conclusion,” she told the committee.
Casper Republican Rep. Jayme Lien said she still had “a lot of questions when it comes to Clerk Hadlock,” mostly because she didn’t get the opportunity to ask her questions when Hadlock failed to appear last month. Hadlock had indicated that she had a scheduling conflict, though subpoenas are not optional.
“So I would ask [the Legislative Service Office,] what would a time frame to make a motion to have her come before us via court order? Do we have the opportunity to do that prior to session starting?” Lien asked
LSO Senior Legislative Attorney Josh Anderson said he wasn’t sure.
“From my knowledge, I don’t think this has ever occurred before,” Anderson said. “So again, I don’t know exactly what it would look like.”
The committee also voted to sponsor four pieces of legislation inspired by the ongoing situation, including one bill to stiffen the penalties for violating a legislative subpoena. Another bill would specify that it’s a felony to submit a false post-election ballot audit.
Well certainly, we need four new laws to counter act a lone case of negligence, not to mention all the time this committee is spending on it.