Group objects to hand count of past election ballots

CODY (WNE) — In response to a local group’s request to hand count ballots from the 2020 election, another local political group expressed its opposition to the idea at Tuesday’s Park County Commissioners meeting.
Wyoming Rising representatives Renee Tafoya and Phyllis Roseberry both asked commissioners not to allow the group Sons of Liberty (formerly the Park County Republican Men’s Club) to be able to proceed with the count.
Commissioners previously asked the state attorney general’s office for its opinion on whether the proposal would be legal and how they could handle the plan if they did move forward.
Other members of the groups, along with many people in support of the ballot counting, were in attendance for the meeting, although only the Wyoming Rising representatives spoke.
“To us, to grant a small group this request would cast doubt on the integrity of the secretary of state’s office to have a good election,” Roseberry said.
The proposal to count 2020 primary and general election ballots before they’re destroyed evolved out of an initial plan by the Sons of Liberty to do a hand count of the upcoming primary and general election ballots as a way, organizer Boone Tidwell said previously, of making many residents feel more confident about elections.
After being told by County Attorney Bryan Skoric that his reading of state law was that it would be illegal to hand count live ballots, the group switched to an idea to count past ballots. Thus county commissioners decided to ask Secretary of State Ed Buchanon’s office about the feasibility of doing the 2020 counts.
 
This story was published on June 9.