SWEETWATER COUNTY – A presentation about the need to initiate paper ballots, paper poll books and a hand count for the upcoming 2024 election was met with skepticism by the Sweetwater County Board of County Commissioners Tuesday.
The presentation was by supporters of Cause of Wyoming, who spoke to the commissioners about their concerns with electronic voting. Jeff Ramaj, one of the Cause for Wyoming supporters, said computers are capable of being hacked and votes flipped for candidates that voters didn’t vote for. Additionally, he said voting machines and electronic poll books contribute to election year fluctuations in voting registrations. Other members spoke as well, mentioning concerns about an incident where the electronic poll books failed during a previous election in Sweetwater County forced an update to the poll books as people were voting and claimed no one knows how the election software works and people shouldn’t trust it.
However, the commissioners didn’t accept the group’s proposal and had issues with the information presented.
Commissioner Island Richards told the group their arguments featured a number of logical fallacies they used to make their conclusions, saying he spotted so many fallacies that it was hard to take seriously. Richards informed Cause of Wyoming representatives that the county utilizes paper ballots and said the paper poll books are a backup to the digital poll books the county clerk’s office uses. Speaking about an issue with electronic poll books during a previous election, he said the paper books served their purpose as backups while the electronic poll books were updated. He also questioned what would happen if there was a problem with paper ballots or poll books, as those would require needing to be reprinted. Richards said the errors that have occurred in previous elections were the result of errors made by election judges, not the machines used in the election.
Richards is the former chairman of the Sweetwater County GOP and served in that capacity during the GOP’s rise in the county. Richard said he’s seen county election data during the past 20 years, saying instances where more than 100% were registered to vote could be explained due to Wyoming allowing people to register to vote at the polls on election day. He said other patterns Ramaj said could not be explained could be explained through statistics because people can behave in predictable manners.
Commissioner Mary Thoman agrees with the need to utilize electronic counting methods, saying she and other people could perform a hand count of livestock at her ranch and each walk away with a different number. She said she has also stopped keeping paper records and has moved to using accounting software to manage the ranch.
“We have to believe in our election officers,” Commissioner Robb Slaughter said.
