Guest Column: Don't Hand Your County Clerk's Duties To Someone In Cheyenne

Most of us don’t think about our local county clerks until we need them—and then we’re grateful they’re there.

It might be a voter with a question about registration, a rancher needing a deed transfer, or a resident verifying land records. In Wyoming, it’s the clerk who answers the phone, knows your name, and gets it done.

About 20 years ago, just after provisional ballots were introduced, a woman named Virginia walked into the Sublette County Clerk’s office. She had moved in with her grandchildren in another part of the county and had been dropped from the voter rolls. On Election Day, she showed up at the wrong precinct—but the election judge recognized her and called the clerk.

Virginia had no Social Security number, no driver’s license, no passport. All she had was a VFW Auxiliary card—and a lifetime in Sublette County. Her husband had been a cowboy, she a housewife. They had never missed an election until he died, and she lost her ride to the polls.

When Virginia came to the clerk’s office that Wednesday, she was greeted with a hug. “Mary, you know me,” she said. And the clerk replied, “Yes, for as long as I’ve lived in Pinedale.”

Because the clerk knew her—because she cared—Virginia’s vote counted.

That’s what local election administration looks like. It’s trust. It’s discretion. It’s service to the people.

And Wyoming’s county clerks do it well.

Clerks are responsible for everything from land titles to vehicle titles—and on top of all that, they run our elections. Elections in Wyoming are secure, accurate, and fair -- not because of top-down oversight, but because of these local professionals.

In 20 years, there have been only four verified cases of voter fraud in the state—and clerks were the ones who found them.

Yet despite their strong record, they are being undermined by the very office that should be supporting them.

The Secretary of State, Chuck Gray, has spent much of his term questioning the integrity of Wyoming’s elections and pushing restrictions that make it harder for eligible people to vote.

He has repeated the false claim that drop boxes were created during COVID, despite knowing they had been in use decades before the pandemic. One longtime clerk called it what it is: gaslighting.

Gray has pushed new ID and residency requirements, encouraged counties to eliminate drop boxes, and tried to centralize election control under his office. When a clerical error occurred in Weston County, he didn’t seek a solution -- he sought a scapegoat.

He keeps raising the issue of an illegal immigrant in Campbell County voting in 2020.

Then-Secretary of State Buchanan was notified by the US State Department as part of a criminal investigation back East. The individual had used fraudulent documents to obtain his passport, but the passport was legitimate. The rules Secretary Gray has since proposed would not have stopped that.

There have been no substantiated complaints about non-Wyoming citizens voting in Wyoming elections. The false narrative concerning voter fraud is the bogeyman in the closet negatively impacting confidence in elections widely considered the most secure in the nation. That fearmongering further dissuades Wyomingites from voting.

There is irony in all this. Gray, a self-identified conservative Republican, is centralizing power and stripping local officials of discretion—exactly the kind of big-government overreach conservatives typically oppose.

What Wyoming needs is not a one-man command center—it’s continued investment in the professionals who already do the job well.

Wyoming voters know this. According to the 2024 Election Year Survey conducted by the University of Wyoming, over 90% trust the accuracy of their county’s election results -- more than trust the state-level processes. That’s not an accident. That’s because our clerks have earned that trust.

Believe your clerk.

Believe the person who lives in your town, not the politician in Cheyenne making headlines by spreading distrust and disinformation. Trust the one who solved your paperwork problem, issued your marriage license, or stayed late on Election Day so your vote would count.

The story of Virginia is more than just a memory. It’s a reminder of what democracy looks like at its best: local, personal, and fair.

Let’s make sure the people who protect it have our support -- not our suspicion.