Secretary of State and County Clerks Confident in Wyoming’s Elections
Reassuring voters Wyoming election process is not rigged
by Wyoming Secretary of State and County Clerks Association of Wyoming media release
October 23, 2016
CHEYENNE, WYOMING, Oct. 20, 2016 – Today Secretary of State Ed Murray joined with the leadership of the County Clerks Association of Wyoming in reassuring Wyoming voters that the election process is not rigged.
"Recent comments that an election could be rigged gives Wyoming’s 23 County Clerks and myself, as Chief Election Official, the opportunity to assure our citizens of the integrity of our voting process. Wyoming’s County Clerks and I are able to state categorically that Wyoming’s election process will not be ‘rigged’ or ‘hacked’," said Secretary Murray.
With 19 days to go before General Election Day 2016, the Secretary of State’s Office reminds voters that they can be confident of the accuracy and fairness of elections in Wyoming for reasons which include: • No Wyoming voting system is ever connected to the internet and thus cannot be hacked; • Each polling place reconciles the number of votes cast to guarantee that the number of people who checked into the polling place matches the number of ballots cast; • Every voting system that is used in an election is tested publicly for ballot tabulation accuracy before being used in any election. Once tested, the ballot counter is immediately locked and sealed through Election Day; • Each ballot can be verified by a paper audit trail that can be used to confirm the accuracy of every single vote while not associating any one ballot with a voter in order to maintain the secrecy of each person’s vote; • Wyoming’s 23 County Clerks work with well trained and experienced citizen election judges and poll workers who manage and monitor each polling place to ensure that the voting environment is efficient and free of obstructions and distractions for the voters; • Once votes are cast, each county convenes a bi-partisan canvassing board comprised of members selected from different political parties to join with the County Clerk to review the election tallies and certify election results; • All voters must attest that they are citizens and eligible to vote. Wyoming’s voter registration system interfaces with data from the Wyoming Departments of Transportation, Health, Corrections, and the Division of Criminal Investigation to prevent voter fraud such as votes cast by deceased persons. If voter fraud were to ever occur, those individuals would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
"The citizens of Wyoming will decide the winners and losers in this election – fair and square," said Carbon County Clerk Gwynn Bartlett, President of the County Clerk’s Association of Wyoming. "Wyoming’s voting process is protected from beginning to end. There are many safeguards that the Secretary of State’s Office and County Clerks have put in place to maintain the integrity of each person’s vote."
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