Gov. Mark Gordon has directed the Wyoming Attorney General’s office to seek the removal of Weston County Clerk Becky Hadlock, he announced Wednesday.
“The Governor believes the Weston County Clerk has committed several acts of misconduct or malfeasance including her failure to appear for a legislative subpoena and her filing of a false audit report in conjunction with her duties as the Clerk of Weston County,” his office said in a statement.
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, resulting in 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 problem remained unresolved for many local voters who took issue with an initial post-election audit.
Additional issues arose: One pertained to allegations that Hadlock filed a false post-election audit. The second accused her of defying a legislative subpoena.
In October, Gordon received a verified complaint from four qualified electors of Weston County. That set off a process, as outlined in state law, that tasks the governor with determining whether to recommend the attorney general seek the removal of an elected official in district court.
How we got here
This is the second time Gordon has been tasked with investigating Hadlock over her actions in the 2024 election.
In the first investigation, Gordon decided that Hadlock “made many serious mistakes,” but “her actions do not rise to the level of misconduct or malfeasance, as I understand the meaning of those terms in this situation.”
Since then, Hadlock failed to appear before a legislative body despite a subpoena to do so. The second complaint pointed to that decision, in addition to the post-election audit.
After Hadlock was charged with a misdemeanor for defying the subpoena, her attorney asked the court to dismiss the case last month, contending that the subpoena is void because a legislative investigation was illegal to begin with.
Ryan Semerad, Hadlock’s attorney, said in a Wednesday statement to WyoFile that his client “remains the elected county clerk for the people of Weston County.”
“She does not intend to resign. She looks forward to reviewing the Governor’s decision and findings as well as any legal filings to come regarding the Governor’s decision,” Semerad wrote. “In the meantime, she will continue to serve the people of Weston County to the very best of her ability.”
Gordon’s decision
Hadlock’s first act of misconduct or malfeasance, according to Gordon’s findings letter, was “her failure to appear in response to the legislative subpoena.”
Rep. Chris Knapp of Gillette, co-chair of the Legislature’s Joint Management Audit Committee, sent a subpoena to Hadlock ahead of a September meeting of a subcommittee investigating her actions. But the clerk informed lawmakers via letter that she would not attend due to a scheduling conflict, and that others would appear on her behalf.
“More pivotal in my determination here is her failure to confirm the adequacy of the arrangements and to take on faith, having heard nothing to the contrary, that those arrangements were satisfactory,” Gordon wrote. “It seems to me that any responsible public servant would make an effort to obtain some documentation or affirmation that their arrangements had been properly accepted before proceeding to miss such an obviously important summons from the legislature.”
Secondly, Gordon raised the issue of the post-election ballot, in which Hadlock “failed to discover twenty-one incorrect ballot entries,” he wrote, adding that that “could likely be construed as misconduct or malfeasance.”
The governor also wrote that based on the information he was provided, “there is no explanation from Clerk Hadlock or any other person as to how the audit could have indicated no problems when at least twenty-one ballots were not accounted for properly.”
As he found in his first investigation, Gordon wrote that he did “not believe that Clerk Hadlock displayed any malicious intent to the outcome of the election. However, her failure to properly perform the post-election audit adds to the governor’s previous findings of incompetence,” he wrote.
“Taken together they contribute to the appearance of misconduct or malfeasance,” Gordon wrote. “These careless actions demonstrate at best an inattentiveness to detail and at worst a disregard for her responsibilities as County Clerk. Thus, it appears that Clerk’s Hadlock continued dereliction of duty on these pertinent matters aggregately amounts to misconduct or malfeasance.”
As such, Gordon directed Attorney General Keith Kautz to commence prosecution.
In separate statements, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and Secretary of State Chuck Gray lauded the decision to seek Hadlock’s removal. Both have been critical of how the governor has handled the matter in the past.