County gains new voters

The number of registered voters in Crook County took a significant leap upwards this year, according to the official tallies from August’s primary election.

Crook County had 4103 registered voters in total at the 2018 primary, a number that grew only modestly to 4143 by the 2020 general election.

This year, on the other hand, 4558 people were registered to vote in the county on election day – an increase of 415 people, or 10%.

On election day itself, Crook County gained 205 new voters.

Unsurprisingly, the number of ballots that were cast for the primary election in August increased, from 2585 at the 2018 primary and 2683 for 2020’s primary to a total of 3058 this year.

Voter turnout was 67%, up from the 2018 primary election, when 63% of voters cast their ballots, but a little lower than 2020’s turnout of 70% for the presidential election.

Absentee Voters

It’s also of little surprise that the number of people who chose to vote via absentee ballot this year dropped to half the number that did so in 2020.

At that year’s primary election, which took place at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, 908 people requested absentee ballots and 827 returned them to be counted.

This year, 555 absentee ballots were sent out and 525 were returned – a turnout of 95%.

With numbers so much lower, County Clerk Melissa Jones didn’t feel it was necessary to take advantage of the rule issued by the Secretary of State’s Office during the pandemic – and still in effect now due to its success in streamlining election night in Wyoming – that allows for absentee ballots to be counted before election day.

“The reason we did last time was because we had a lot,” says Jones. This year, with just 525, she felt the number wasn’t too high for them to be counted on election day.

“Somewhere around 150 people actually voted absentee and then came and put them in the machine, so they don’t actually have to run all of those 525 through – some of them are already in the machine.”

Absentee Machine

A voting machine for absentee ballots is a recent addition for local voters, having been introduced during the 2020 elections.

“It wasn’t really COVID-related,” she says. Rather, “People really like the idea of being able to put that ballot in a machine, rather than sticking it in an envelope.”

“We just thought, let’s try it and see what happens,” Jones continues. “People really enjoyed it last time, so we thought we’d just do that again last time.”

Though some people do worry that using the machine might mean the judges can run a report to tell what votes they cast, Jones explains that it’s not actually possible without alerting the election judges.

If the clerk’s office staff did try to run a report, she says, “The machine would be shut down and the election judges would know that we did something like that.”

“The absentee judges come in and verify that it’s at zero to start with and we lock it every night, and then they get the final report – they can’t even get a report until they put all the ballots through, so they don’t even know throughout the day,” she says.

Checks and balances have been put in place to ensure the security of the absentee machine, Jones continues, such as the daily check that the number of affidavits signed by absentee voters matches the number of votes recorded by the machine. Three people must then sign to confirm they have witnessed this is the case, and a seal is placed on the machine overnight and verified as intact the next morning.

The absentee voting machine is open for 45 days before the election. It will be available for the general election from September 23.

ID Required

For the first time this year, voters were required to bring photo identification with them to the polling place. Change can sometimes bring confusion, but that doesn’t appear to be the case in this instance.

Jones asked her election judges to direct any voters who forgot their ID to contact her, so that she could explain the process they would need to follow.

“If they don’t bring a photo ID, they can say that they have one and forgot to bring it with them, and then they have the opportunity to cast a provisional ballot,” she explains.

“With a provisional ballot, you have to prove whatever the contest was – in this case, you forgot to bring your ID – to me by 5 p.m. the next day.”

Other potential reasons that a voter might be contested at the polling station include that they are challenged as a felon or a non-citizen.

Just one voter contacted Jones on election day having forgotten their photo ID.

“I had a couple of election judges say people had to go back out to their car to get it, but nobody complained, they just did it and I only had one phone call, so I think everything went well,” she says.