Can we stop pretending that ‘election integrity’ was ever a real problem?  

Restoring “election integrity” is the issue that keeps on winning for Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray and the Republican Party.

It’s a cynical political game that exists not to solve a real problem, but serves to stir up Gray’s base of extremist voters and boost his overall popularity for his long-rumored run for the governor’s office next year.

Now, the U.S. Department of Justice and red states that want to intervene on Gray’s behalf in a federal lawsuit are playing into that scenario by supposedly confirming that Wyomingites are justified in thinking the state’s election system is vulnerable to voter fraud and noncitizens voting.

The Equality State Policy Center, a voting-rights group, sued Gray and the state’s 23 county clerks in May over the constitutionality of that new law requiring proof from those registering to vote that they are United States citizens who have lived in Wyoming for at least 30 days.

U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl has since ruled that county officials are nominal parties who will technically remain a part of the case but have no responsibilities.

Wyoming’s county clerks do a remarkably effective job running our elections and are not responsible for the potentially harmful changes Gray and the GOP-led Legislature made to the state’s election statutes. 

County clerks try to ensure every qualified voter can participate in federal, state and local elections. Republican Party officials across the country have done just the opposite, because the higher the vote totals, the less likely their party will win. 

In its filing, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said the federal court should “maintain the long-held position that preventing voter fraud and safeguarding voter confidence are legitimate state interests.”

Of course, it should. But Wyoming had election integrity long before Gray and the far-right Freedom Caucus proposed the new voter registration requirements.

According to the conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation’s database, Wyoming has had only four voter fraud convictions in the past quarter century — and the criminals were all Republicans. Gray has repeatedly charged voter fraud here is more of an issue than the numbers show, which should damage his credibility. Unfortunately, what he claims is accepted as the truth by many voters. 

No restoration of Wyoming’s election integrity is needed, especially from ideologues trying to win favor from President Donald Trump, who still claims he was the victim of a “rigged” 2020 election despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

In a University of Wyoming survey conducted before the November 2024 election, nearly 90% of Wyoming adults said they expected their county’s tally of ballots for president to be very or somewhat reliable. Voter confidence in our elections is not a problem state law needs to address.

There is little evidence that non-citizens are attempting to vote in Wyoming elections, which was already a crime. This is a textbook case of a solution in search of a problem.

Gray indicated in many instances, but not all, a valid driver’s license will suffice for proof of identity, residency and U.S. citizenship as long as they list a Wyoming address. 

But the suit identifies subsets of the population — including young, low-income, already underrepresented voters, domestic abuse and sexual assault survivors, and women who changed their names after marriage — who will likely discover that obtaining the proper documentation means navigating “a labyrinth of bureaucracy,” all with costs and delays as election day nears. 

If people who want to vote begin their search too late, or become frustrated with the amount of time and money it takes, they may scrap the whole process and be disenfranchised altogether. That’s hardly the desired outcome in a democratic republic that values individual voter rights.

A huge chunk of the MAGA universe wants to help defend the handiwork of Gray and the bill’s Freedom Caucus sponsor, Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, against the liberal elites and “Republicans in name only” who want it thrown out.

The Republican National Committee maintained in its filing that as elected officials Gray and the county clerks represent the public interest, but don’t adequately represent the GOP’s “inherently partisan” interests. Therefore, the party argues, it should be allowed to intervene in the suit.

Why? Because if the court rules against the new law the party “would need to divert resources from other mission-critical activities towards get-out-the-vote activities to reinsure Republican voter trust in Wyoming’s electoral system.”

Sure, federal courts always prioritize keeping a political party’s “mission-critical activities” on course. How can the RNC keep its budget straight if it first spends money to scare the bejesus out of voters telling them noncitizens are stealing elections, and then has to waste even more dough trying to convince its own members that it really is safe to vote?

Meanwhile, 25 red states and Guam, a U.S. territory, have filed an amicus brief that urges the court to deny the plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction. The brief claims the ESPC hasn’t identified “an actual, real-life individual who is eligible and wishes to become a Wyoming voter but cannot feasibly prove his or her citizenship.”

I find the ESPC’s response to the brief more compelling: “[While] all states may posture during legislative sessions (or in amicus briefs) about the specter of non-citizen voting, the fact remains that there is no evidence that it is an actual problem — in Wyoming or anywhere else — and the amici tellingly point to none.”

I think the court should take into consideration Gov. Mark Gordon’s reasoning in letting the Gray/Bear collaboration become law without his signature. The governor didn’t use this phrase, but it’s what he probably meant: It’s downright goofy.

Gordon wrote that the law instructs county clerks to accept a prospective voter’s proof of citizenship so long as it doesn’t contain “any indication” that the person isn’t a U.S. citizen.

“This standard may be difficult for clerks to administer, as it is unclear and perhaps awkward for our county clerks to consistently apply with any degree of certainty,” he concluded.

The lawsuit said the law should be “void for vagueness” because it “both fails to allow persons of ordinary intelligence to anticipate how the law will be enforced and invites arbitrary enforcement.”

All true. Gray and Bear obviously had many months to produce a bill that would pass constitutional muster. If this ambiguous concoction is the best they can do to solve a supposedly major problem, why shouldn’t a judge tell them it’s a failure?