Yes, Wyoming voters, your elections are safe and secure

I knew Chuck Gray was falling down on the job.

Wyoming’s secretary of state won his office by vowing to make sure we had election integrity.

Then last year he began campaigning for a new government job as Wyoming’s U.S. House representative. Sure, he talks a good game about preserving the safety of our elections, and Gray could probably deliver a speech about it in his sleep.

But the old “oomph” in his campaign pitch has been missing, and I’ve brought the receipts to prove it.

I googled Chuck Gray and “insiders,” one of his all-time favorite political targets, and found 11,400 entries.

But his real enemy is the “leftwing media.” A total of 27,200 entries!

“Election integrity?” A paltry 7,200.

Now, I admit you could look at this two ways. During the first three years of his term as secretary of state — and acting governor whenever Gov. Mark Gordon is out of state, which fortunately isn’t too often — perhaps he solved Wyoming’s lack of election integrity.

I’m sure that’s how his congressional campaign would spin it. But that presumes that the state had such a problem to begin with.

It didn’t. All of the 23 county clerks in their state association said Wyoming’s elections are safe and secure, and they should know — they’re the ones at the local level who really supervise them, not Gray.

So, please vote in this primary election Aug. 18, if not before. You only have one ballot, so make it count.

Do you know how many convictions for voter fraud Wyoming has had since 2000? Four, involving three separate cases. By the way, all four phony voters were reportedly Republicans, members of Gray’s own party.

That’s not me, part of the wretched leftwing media, saying it. The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that thinks it’s been running the country for decades, keeps statistics like that.

One of Gray’s predecessors as secretary of state, Ed Buchanan, used to travel throughout Wyoming to give residents the real story: The state’s elections are secure and conducted with integrity. He actively worked to dispel the myths that Gray and other far-right politicians have spread far and wide.

“If people don’t trust their elections, then nothing else matters,” Buchanan said. He knew that public trust in the electoral process is crucial for democracy. 

Buchanan made sure the secretary of state’s website devoted a page to facts about how secure Wyoming’s elections are. Once Gray was in office, that page mysteriously disappeared.

Of course he had other priorities early in his administration, like filling the 12 staff vacancies created by resignations between the time he won the August 2022 GOP primary and his swearing-in ceremony five months later.

They included former Deputy Secretary of State Karen Wheeler and all three members of the Elections Division. Combined, the quartet had 119 years of experience, Cowboy State Daily reported. Overall, more than one-third of the staff quit.

Still, Wyoming’s elections remained safe and secure. The Heritage Foundation even moved Wyoming up on its election integrity scale, giving the Legislature five more points and an “atta boy” for banning ranked-choice voting.

(In reality, that should have lowered Wyoming’s score, because allowing voters to rank candidates generally reduces negative campaigning, increases voter turnout, and makes voters feel they haven’t “wasted” their vote once their first choice is out of the running. That’s just me, a member of the wretched leftwing media, expressing my personal opinion. But I’m right.)

Fortunately, one ban the Legislature didn’t enact was on ballot drop boxes, which are a convenience for voters, especially if they live far from their county clerk’s office and can’t get there during business hours.

Lawmakers rejected many of the bad bills Gray and the Freedom Caucus supported, including junking electronic voting machines and making hand counts mandatory. Gee whiz, Chuck, why don’t we just use the chisel-and-slate system that was good enough for the Flintstones?

But I have to hand it to Gray, who did make some smart choices as campaign season began. First, he asked everyone to vote for him even though he didn’t say what office he was seeking. It gave voters practice imagining his name and poking a hole to the side of it.

Next, to no one’s surprise, he chose an office where he wouldn’t have to face U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, who was reportedly pondering the gubernatorial contest. Instead, she decided to run for U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis’ seat when the senator announced her retirement.

Realizing he couldn’t beat Hageman was a no-brainer for Gray. He dropped out of the U.S. House race in 2022 when Trump picked Hageman to be his candidate, and opted instead for secretary of state. Then Trump endorsed Gray.

But now it’s 2026 and Gray’s plan for this race isn’t rock solid. He could have stayed in the secretary of state’s office, given Wyoming voters’ penchant for reelecting state officeholders. 

Gray, however, felt he deserved to move up. The governor’s race initially looked like an easy way if Hageman didn’t want to come home, but her open U.S. House seat was too good to pass up.

The problem for Gray is that apparently few candidates cowered in fear because he had tossed his ill-fitting cowboy hat into the ring. Of the original 10 who filed for the office, nine remain. Frank Chapman withdrew after loaning his campaign more than $1 million.

But the other members of the Million-Dollar Club — Gray, Reid Rasner and Steve Friess — are considered the favorites, even though supporters of dark-horse candidates always believe they have what it takes to pull ahead. I’m sorry to burst some bubbles, but they don’t.

When Gray released a poll in May claiming a seven-point lead over Rasner and 11 points over Friess, it was probably pretty accurate. He had won a statewide contest and was popular among extremely conservative Republicans who viewed him as a bit of a rebel. They particularly liked how he picks fights with Gordon.

But Friess appears to have the momentum headed into the final week before the Aug. 18 primary. He’s become the contest’s top spender, and I think the idea of an “ABC” campaign — “Anyone But Chuck” —  is likely to make Friess the winner as Gray and Rasner continue to throw dirt at each other. Nothing is sticking on Friess.

It leads to an interesting possibility, though. Gray is one of the fiercest Trump defenders, getting on the “2020 election was rigged” bandwagon before it even left the gate. So, he knows how to play that sour grapes game with the best of them.

But who is he going to blame if he loses, since he’s the supervisor of Wyoming elections? Is he going to throw his own administration under the bus? Of course not.

The insiders and leftwing media rap has become as stale as it gets — I remember him using it during his second legislative race in Casper in 2016 — and I don’t see it holding up now.

So what will be Gray’s fall guy if he loses? Woke wind? Data centers?

My bet is on “illegal immigrants,” who are clearly unable to vote. But somehow during Gray’s last hurrah overseeing Wyoming’s elections, they’re gonna fill up those damn ballot drop boxes.