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Civics 307 Shares Data on Elections
Senate File 0097 introduced last week by Wyoming State Senator Bo Biteman is intended to address election integrity by prohibiting the practice of crossover voting. The bill is expected to be debated in the Senate Corporations Committee Tuesday morning. Sheridan Media’s Ron Richter has more.
Crossover voting is when members of one political party change their party affiliation to vote in the competing party’s primary election, then switch back to their original party affiliation. I recently spoke with Civics 307 Founder Gail Symons about SF 0097 and how it pertains to crossover voting.
Symons said the crossover voter issues came to a head in 2018 in Wyoming during the primary for the governor’s race.
Symons said in the 2018 election—only 6,057 Democrats changed their affiliation to Republican. While fewer in numbers at 4,505, a greater percentage of unaffiliated changed to Republican. The total was insufficient to change the outcome of the Governor’s race which initiated the data review. Further, of the overall 11,039 who changed to Republican, only 668 changed back.
Symons said Wyomingites want opportunities that will give them more access to secure and fair elections and ways to make sure voter participation stays high and the winner gets a majority of the votes, but SF 0097 won’t accomplish that, so Civics 307 will continue to work with other nonpartisan partners on solutions that will meet the needs of our state’s voters while supporting the rights of political parties.
Thomas Jones
February 22, 2022 at 8:54 am
No source there Gail? Its still needs to be stopped. Lets go back to one election day for the primary and general, and get rid of the ES&S tabulators. That will give the folks of WY secure and fair elections. Wouldn’t you agree Gail? By the way, there is no such thing as non-partisan. Its a myth used to fool the people.
Charles Cole
February 22, 2022 at 11:52 am
Correct. For Symons to say that there is no evidence of “nefarious” intent in this matter is akin to the East Germans who claimed for decades that they had “no political prisoners.” What she calls “nefarious intent” is well beyond the scope of any poll or any database to assess. The fact remains that this, like mail-in ballots, is very susceptible to “nefarious” use by those choosing to disrupt the normal procedure of a political party choosing its own candidates in the primary elections without undue and unjustifiable interference from those of another political party, whatever public proclamations said individuals may claim. Intent is indeed very difficult to prove. Common sense dictates here that it should be inferred from conduct. Frankly, the supporters of Liz Cheney know that crossover voting and participation by the “Frontier Republicans” represent her only chance to prevail in the GOP 2022 primary.
Janet Winfrey
February 22, 2022 at 9:11 am
I respectively disagree. The purpose of the primary is for the Parties to decide their candidates going forward to the general election. If members of another party change to skew the vote of the other party, that’s not just. If a party is not fielding candidates, or weak candidates, for the primary, then that party needs to make that happen, not cross-over vote. I think it is a good policy to have people that want to change parties do it well in advance of the primary. The point to me is to support and vote your party through the primary process, either you agree with a party platform and beliefs or not.
Clark Guelde
February 22, 2022 at 1:48 pm
I think a person should have to decide what party they’re in well before the candidates even file to run for office.