Weston County election snafu renews calls for hand counting Wyoming election results

CASPER—A miscount in Weston County’s 2024 general election and the ensuing fallout over the last year have refueled calls for banning electronic election equipment in Wyoming. 

The state already relies on paper ballots in all but one county, but such a move would make Wyoming the only state in the country to count all its ballots by hand. 

“I’m so thankful that I work with legislators that are serious about making sure that we get good answers for what happened, and we don’t blow this off,” Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, told the Wyoming Legislature’s Weston County Clerk 2024 General Election Subcommittee as it met Monday in Casper.



Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, center, listens to the Wyoming Legislature’s Weston County Clerk 2024 General Election Subcommittee in Casper on Sept. 29, 2025. (Maggie Mullen/WyoFile)

Altogether, a bill to hand count ballots could likely go further in the upcoming legislative session than in years past when Republicans — including several Freedom Caucus members and endorsees — got cold feet and killed mirror bills to ban electronic election equipment. 

Meanwhile, lawmakers are pursuing criminal charges against Hadlock after she failed to appear at the Monday meeting despite being subpoenaed. 

Background

Calls to prohibit electronic ballot tabulators aren’t new to Wyoming. 

In 2022, for example, Republicans in Park County led a pursuit of hand counting ballots, but their efforts came up short. And GOP organizers sought signatures in 2024 for a ballot initiative to require county clerks to use a hand-tabulation system.

More recently, Rep. Scott Smith, R-Lingle, and former Sen. Darin Smith, R-Cheyenne, brought mirror bills in the 2025 general session to not just eliminate tabulators but also ban electronic pollbooks as well. 

Earlier this year, Secretary of State Chuck Gray encouraged lawmakers to keep the door open on some of the more sweeping election measures from 2025, including a ban on all electronic election equipment, including voting machines, tabulators and pollbooks. 

Gray pointed to legislation from earlier this year, including the two Smith bills, and said he supported that legislation and “certainly can continue to be involved in that conversation and supportive of that conversation.” 

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