Wyoming governor requests investigation into activity of Justice
Department monitors during primary
[August 29, 2026]
By MEAD GRUVER
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — Wyoming's attorney general is investigating
how two U.S. Department of Justice officials monitored poll workers and
observed voters in the state's most populous county during the Aug. 18
primary, a spokesperson for Republican Gov. Mark Gordon said Friday.
Gordon called the monitors' behavior “a bit aggressive” and “irregular"
in an otherwise routine meeting to confirm the election results in the
mostly rural and Republican state.
“I feel very strongly about the federal government coming in and taking
our guns. I don’t like that. I don’t like the federal government coming
in and taking our votes, either,” Gordon said at the meeting Wednesday.
Gordon spokesperson Amy Edmonds on Friday confirmed the investigation by
Attorney General Keith Kautz, who was appointed by the governor.
Voting rights groups have raised concern about President Donald Trump's
Justice Department shifting priorities away from enforcing civil rights
laws with respect to voting. Trump instead has directed federal
prosecutors to search for fraud in the 2020 election, which he lost to
Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump has meanwhile been more assertive about influencing the
department, including encouraging investigations of political opponents,
in his second term.
Approaching the end of his second and final term in office, Gordon has
publicly expressed little if any previous criticism of federal polices
under Trump.
The monitoring happened in southeastern Wyoming's Laramie County, home
to the state capital, Cheyenne.
The monitors arrived soon after polls opened at 7 a.m. on primary day
and said they intended to interview voters while assessing compliance
with federal civil rights and voting rights laws, Laramie County Clerk
Debra Lee said in a statement.
Lee said her office didn't allow interviews to be conducted in polling
places and denied the monitors permission to do so. The monitors
questioned local officials about “the nature, length and timing of poll
worker training," Lee said.
“Monitors requested training guides, asked how our new election
equipment was acquired and wanted to examine our tabulators,” Lee said.
Wyoming law allows only election observation by certified poll watchers
who monitor registration and turnout, Lee said.
“This was a poorly managed exercise and one that showed complete
disregard for our state laws and administration of our elections,” Lee
said in the statement.
She said she hadn't been notified the monitors would be in Laramie
County. A Justice Department official in Washington told her the
decision to send them was made on short notice and an email was sent to
her but “may have gone to the wrong address," Lee said.
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Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon speaks at the summer meeting of the
National Governors Association in Salt Lake City, July 11, 2024. (AP
Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)
The Justice Department routinely sends monitors to observe polling
places or election offices, but they are not supposed to interfere
with voting or election administration.
The DOJ did not answer questions about the monitors Friday but
referred to a primary day statement by Darin Smith, the U.S.
attorney for Wyoming. He said monitors would be in the state “to
ensure transparency, ballot security, and strict compliance with
federal voting rights statutes.”
“Voters deserve absolute confidence that their ballots are secure
and their voices are heard without interference,” Smith said in the
statement. “We are working alongside local officials to ensure every
lawful vote is protected.”
Appointed by the governor, Wyoming's attorney general works mainly
in the service of the executive branch and is not politically
independent as in other states.
No one, including Gordon, is asserting the monitoring influenced the
election outcome, Edmonds said.
“It’s really a fact-finding mission just to sort of figure out
exactly what did happen,” Edmonds said.
Trump's fraud claims about the 2020 election have been amplified by
Wyoming's Republican secretary of state, Chuck Gray, who
successfully ran in 2022 in part by showing a discredited
documentary about those claims at campaign rallies across the state.
Gray told Gordon at the elections meeting that his office “got an
email,” but that was all the communication it had with the Justice
Department about the federal officials. Wyoming law allows election
observers, Gray said.
“Certainly happy to visit with the attorney general,” Gray told the
governor during the meeting. “Transparency is so important, and
accountability.”
Gray is not seeking reelection as secretary of state and won the
Republican nomination for Wyoming’s seat in the U.S. House during
the primary.
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