Election scrutiny could lead to loss of polling places, says county clerk

The primary elections this August will see a couple of minor alterations for local voters, but future elections could bring deeper change. Warned County Clerk Linda Fritz last week, the current focus on election integrity may see Crook County lose some of its polling places.

“Times are going to change,” she told the county commissioners, later adding, “If we can’t keep the places secure enough and we have too much scrutiny, I think it would be fair to say that [we] may have to…close down some of the rural polling places.”

Fritz was referring to the opinion still held by many Americans that the 2020 presidential elections were “stolen”.

At this time, there is no confirmed evidence that Wyoming’s elections were compromised. Nevertheless, there continues to be a strong push in Wyoming for more security during elections.

For example, the Wyoming State Legislature earlier this year passed a bill that will require voters to present identification before completing their ballots.

However, the scrutiny that could affect elections in this county has nothing to do with state legislation, she said, and is instead led by members of the public. Nor is it necessarily going to bring the positive change these citizens are hoping for, she said.

Fritz has always maintained that Wyoming’s election system contains sufficient checks and balances to maintain integrity. However, “It’s gotten to a point where Wyoming wants to scrutinize so much on something that isn’t broken,” she lamented.

“If they continue to do that, we’re going to have to lock down and give them fewer polling places.”

Some of the ideas for increased security may seem positive in theory, but Fritz explained how they would cause practical difficulties. In some places, for example, Fritz told the commission that game cameras are being placed in every polling location.

Commissioner Kelly Dennis pointed out that some game cameras are powerful enough to pick up images of baby mice and therefore would be powerful enough to see which boxes a voter was marking.

Other suggestions, Fritz continued, include changing the stickers identifying election judges to signed lanyards. This would cause problems if someone called in sick and a lanyard needed to be replaced and transported to a rural location at the last moment.

Several attendees were surprised at this idea, wondering how likely it is that a fake election judge would turn up in New Haven to sit in the polling station for 12 hours.

The irony, pointed out County Attorney Joe Baron, is that, “You’re less likely to have fraud happen out in a rural place anyway because when somebody new shows up…they stand out.”

Incoming Changes

The county commission has approved a change to polling locations this year that will see most moved back to where they can usually be found.

Several were moved during the 2020 elections due to the need for social distancing and a state-directed limit on the number of polling stations that could be open per county. However, this is no longer necessary for the 2022 elections.

A total of six polling locations were moved in 2020, some to the basement of the courthouse in Sundance. This included Beulah, Aladdin and Elmore.

Aladdin will be moving back to the Aladdin Community Building, while Elmore voters will once again be directed to the Barton Ranch Voting Booth. Beulah’s polling location will be in its new home at the Northeast Wyoming Welcome Center.

The welcome center was chosen as the new location before the last elections, due to a water leak in the roof of the community building. This will be the first time the new location is used.

Meanwhile, with county voters using the courthouse basement, Sundance voters were moved to the old elementary school for the 2020 elections. For this year’s election cycle, Sundance Inside North, Sundance Inside South and Sundance Outside will all be moving back to the courthouse basement.

Fritz also informed the commission of two changes to the number of precinct committeemen and women in Crook County.

“Normally, your precinct men and women count is based off of the last General Election with U.S. Representative votes. Instead, during redistricting time, it’s based off of population,” said Fritz.

2.2 Outside Sundance will have two precinct men and two precinct women, which Fritz noted would have occurred anyway if the count had been based on votes for U.S. Representative. However, 12.12 Elmore will also have two precinct men and two precinct women due to the use of population for this election cycle.