Not all ‘election integrity’ cases are treated equally by Gray

Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray campaigned two years ago vowing to improve “election integrity” in a state that’s had only four convictions for election fraud out of several million ballots cast since 2000.

Gray, Wyoming’s real-life embodiment of the fictional Don Quixote, is free to tilt at whatever windmills he wants as a private citizen. But he needs to stop conducting this self-righteous quest while pretending he’s a servant of the people. It’s a sham, a political gambit to masquerade as a hard-line conservative crusader for freedom.

Gray is an ardent Donald Trump supporter who claimed the 2020 presidential election was “clearly rigged” against the former president. During his campaign, the then-state lawmaker toured Wyoming and offered free showings of “2000 Mules,” a widely discredited film that erroneously claimed Democrats conspired to steal the 2020 election for Joe Biden. (Earlier this year, the company behind the film announced it was pulling it from distribution.)

Based on Gray’s handling of alleged violations of the state’s election code since he began supervising Wyoming elections in January 2023, I believe his never-ending search for election integrity is treated differently depending upon which faction of the Wyoming Republican Party is complaining.

This has been a consistent pattern of conduct by Gray, and there’s no indication it will stop. In fact, based on statements made by the secretary to legislative committees and the media, the conflict is becoming more intense.

Before last week’s primary election, many voters were upset about mailers from far-right, out-of-state political action committees targeting state legislators who align with the Wyoming Caucus. This Republican faction of traditional conservatives has led the Legislature for decades, but lost several seats to the Freedom Caucus, which is poised to take control of the House.

The mailers included demonstrably false and misleading information, like the accusation by the WY Freedom PAC — the campaign arm of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus — that five Wyoming Caucus lawmakers voted to keep Trump off the 2024 ballot. It was an outright lie. The Wyoming Legislature has never taken such a vote.

Two Wyoming Caucus members from Rock Springs, Reps. Cody Wylie and J.T. Larson, filed a defamation lawsuit against the PAC. They both won their respective primary races.

At a July 31 Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee meeting, members and the public asked Gray what could be done to halt the deluge of false accusations all over the state right before the primary.

The mailer’s backers, in defending the Trump vote accusation, cited a budget bill footnote, which didn’t make it through the budget process, that would have prevented the secretary of state from intervening in any out-of-state litigation that didn’t name himself, his office or the state as a party to the suit. Lawmakers’ rejection of that amendment was a well-reasoned decision to ensure Wyoming would speak with one voice. Yet the far right twisted it into a vote to keep Trump off the ballot.

Former GOP Rep. Shelly Duncan of Lingle told the Corporations committee that free speech is great, but there are libel laws to protect people.

“We have some sitting legislators being involved in some of [these attacks],” she said. “At a PAC level, that’s the part I’m having problems with — flat-out lying, manipulating and misleading the public on bills.” 

Gray apparently didn’t see it that way. “That is in the eye of the beholder,” he said. “There are many people who disagree with you, and I’ve talked to both sides of this issue. There are many people who believe those mailers are an accurate reflection, in their opinions.”

“Did you ever see anything hit your desk where I voted to remove President Trump from the ballot?” Wylie asked him.

A petulant Gray said the footnote was related to the people’s right to choose “who to elect for themselves,” and added it felt like retribution to him.

The rest of the meeting was a surreal experience, as if the participants fell into a rabbit hole and woke up watching “Chuck in Wonderland.”

Rep. Mike Yin (D-Jackson) asked Gray if his office planned to investigate well-publicized criticism about the Crook County Republican Party donating $25,000 to WY Freedom PAC. State law bars political parties from contributing to certain candidates directly or indirectly before a primary election.

Gray said his office doesn’t do investigations, just refers complaints to the appropriate law enforcement agency. He said he didn’t read news articles about the donation and no one had officially complained. Even if someone did, he said, “I don’t know if the check has cleared.” Nope, nothing to see here!

Among those loudly crying foul was Senate President Ogden Driskill (R-Devils Tower), who soon made an official complaint. The WY Freedom PAC returned the money, while claiming no wrongdoing. 

While Kari Drost, PAC chair, expressed gratitude for the donation, she penned an op-ed sent to media that said, “No amount of support is worth a politically motivated prosecution for the sake of another headline meant to deride conservatives.”

Please contrast this incident with Gray’s outrage at an allegation that ActBlue, a national Democratic fundraising organization, was laundering money and stealing people’s identities. 

He immediately announced an investigation of ActBlue Wyoming to — you probably guessed it — “ensure the integrity of Wyoming elections.” Gray called the legal consequences “deeply troubling,” because he’d heard “anecdotally” that Wyoming residents had been impersonated on ActBlue’s website.

“That to me reaches the status of a complaint,” Gray said. He said Yin was “grasping at straws” to conclude anything else.

Gray’s concern about mailers widely fluctuates depending on whose ox is gored. In March 2023, the secretary announced four election finance complaints about mailers going after private citizens for being “conservative imposters” who were “trying to tear our state apart” allegedly sent by then-Rep. Cyrus Western (R-Big Horn), a Wyoming Caucus member. 

The matter was investigated by the Sheridan County attorney, who decided not to file charges. Only one of the quartet targeted by the mailers was actually an elected official — a precinct committeeman — but that didn’t stop Gray from sending the case to the state attorney general.

Last year, Gray said mailers that made inaccurate and misleading statements about Reps. Steve Harshman (R-Casper) and Barry Crago (R-Buffalo) of the Wyoming Caucus were legal, even though they were not labeled as paid by a political group. In explaining his decision, Gray cited, among other things, the timing of the mailers, which came before Harshman and Crago were formally candidates and more than 30 days before the primary election, thus exempting them from the relevant election-related statutes.

In February, another anonymous mailer claimed Gray had abandoned Republican values and that he was taking campaign contributions from his own father to the tune of half a million dollars, which financed the vast majority of his secretary of state campaign.

Predictably, Gray howled. He claimed it was “a bunch of lies” concocted by donors associated with Hillary Clinton and George Soros. He also said it was retaliation for his efforts to keep Trump’s name on the Wyoming ballot.

Gray says he’s defending the truth and election integrity. But, like Quixote, he appears to be tilting at windmills, responding to imagined threats to election integrity while distracting from real, critical issues Wyoming voters must decide.