Wyoming lawmakers rejected a proposal Wednesday by State Rep. Chuck Gray (R-Casper) to give the Wyoming Legislature the power to audit elections.
Why it Matters: Gray, who is running for Congress against incumbent U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney in next year’s Republican primary, has made “election integrity” a centerpiece of his campaign. Gray has also touted his visits to the site of an election audit in Arizona inspired by former President Donald Trump’s disproven claims the 2020 election was stolen from him.
The details: County clerks’ offices are responsible for auditing elections at the county level. Wyoming does not require a statewide audit of election results.
Gray’s proposal, which failed by a raised hand vote of 8-2, proposed bringing the Wyoming Department of Audit — which primarily handles financial and government performance audits — under the umbrella of the legislative branch. He also proposed authorizing it to audit elections.
“I think it’s time that the Legislature takes on this function and does financial audits, performance audits and — in light of the problems that we’ve seen across the country — also has the discretionary ability to manage election audits,” Gray said.
Gray did not elaborate on the problems he saw with national elections during the meeting or in a subsequent text message exchange with a WyoFile reporter. Gray also claimed an audit program could be established without increased cost to taxpayers, which some lawmakers disputed.
History: Election fraud is exceedingly rare in Wyoming, according to the right-leaning Heritage Foundation, with just three reported instances since 2000, none of which affected election outcomes.
Gray, however, has echoed disproven assertions that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged,” and rife with voter fraud. In the 2021 legislative session Gray successfully sponsored voter identification legislation. The emphasis on “election integrity” aligns the U.S. House hopeful with national political figures like Republican Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar and former President Trump.
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Nationally, most allegations of election fraud in the 2020 election have gone nowhere, according to a database maintained by the American Bar Association.
Sen. Anthony Bouchard (R-Cheyenne), a member of the Management Audit Committee and one of Gray’s opponents in next year’s race, accused Gray of pulling a political stunt. While he said he supported similar legislation in the past, Bouchard has largely rejected claims of rampant voter fraud in the 2020 election.
“I’m disgusted that you’re pulling this election issue because you’re running for office here,” he said.
The propaganda machine has the pedal to the metal. The statistical abnormalities of 2020 election indeed are unproven. An audit is needed to change the status from unproven to proven. So ask yourself this question, why the pushback on an audit.
Now we find out the Gray’s papa is the SOLE donor for his boy’s try at running against Ms. Cheney. Still laughing…
The author of this article states that fraud in the 2020 election had been “disproven.” I’m not sure on what basis that can be said, though it would appear that the authors own bias would prefer that word to be true. A much better word would be ‘unproven,” because I’m not aware of any forensic audit(s) having disproven significant fraud in the 2020 election. The facts so far seem to point to it being unknown.
The 60+ court cases that were thrown out for lack of evidence and standing would tell a reasonable person that the fraud claims were a lie. Keep holding out for those watermarked ballots though.
At what point will the chrump minions realize and admit that they were hoodwinked?
They weren’t thrown out for lack of evidence! Way to spin it.
Read those cases yourself. Don’t trust OAN, Newsmax, fox, or your Facebook propaganda.
You are being manipulated by the dishonest information that you choose to consume.
There he is again, trying to steal the imvote. Who are the two traitors that voted with him?