Clerk's error results in votes not being counted in legislative race
County Clerk Becky Hadlock has taken responsibility for an election error that potentially resulted in hundreds of votes not being counted, but her actions before, during and after the election have been inconsistent and raise public concerns over the integrity of Weston County's elections.
(UPDATE: Weston County GOP Chair Kari Drost has provided updated results for the House District 1 and Weston County Commission races after the canvassing board met on Friday, November 8, at 10 a.m. at the courthouse to conduct a recount and certify election results. Although the recount did not affect the outcome of either election, there were significant corrections made in tallies for both races and those numbers have been updated at the end of this story. The Weston County Clerk did not provide updated election results to the News Letter Journal, but we were able to verify updated figures provided by Drost and Republican Precinct Committeewoman Susan Love on the Weston County website. Please check the News Letter Journal's Youtube Channel for complete video recordings of Friday's canvassing board meeting and Thursday's county commission meeting.)
An error has been identified in the manner in which Weston County Clerk Becky Hadlock prepared the ballots for the general election, and it resulted in a number of votes not being counted in the initial tallies announced on Tuesday evening.
Hadlock addressed the issue at Thursday’s Weston County Commission meeting and took responsibility for the error in an email shared with a number of Wyoming public officials early that morning, but only after being contacted by the county sheriff, the Wyoming Secretary of State and numerous media outlets who expressed concern over what she called a “calculation error.”
Weston County Sheriff Bryan Colvard confirmed for the News Letter Journal that he had to contact County Clerk Becky Hadlock on election night regarding an anomaly in the House District 1 race after Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray was unable to reach her. Colvard contacted Hadlock at her home, and Gray later confirmed for Colvard that she had contacted him via a text.
Gray told the NLJ that he had contacted her immediately Tuesday evening to try to address an issue his office detected in the report of election results distributed by Hadlock's office. The vote count in the House District 1 race indicated that Rep. Chip Neiman, R-Hullett, had received only 166 votes in the election and that there were 1,289 undervotes in the race. In comparison, Neiman had received 645 votes in the 2024 primary election, 1,074 in the 2022 General Election and 1,300 in the 2020 General Election.
Representatives of the News Letter Journal had also noted the discrepancy in the vote total provided by Hadlock, and NLJ photojournalist Walter Sprague reached out to Hadlock when the courthouse opened for business on Wednesday morning to seek clarification. Although she admitted later in the afternoon that the issue was under investigation by ES&S (Election Systems & Software), the county’s electronic vote tabulator provider, she originally told Sprague that the significant number of undervotes were the result of a “protest” vote over the County Commission's recent resolution declaring vacancies in the state Legislature.
The vacancy resolution was supported by Neiman, and he thought Hadlock’s initial claim was preposterous.
“Does no one know how to see a red flag? Something needs to be questioned,” he said. “To write it off as some kind of protest vote. … My goodness, I can’t imagine.”
Neiman told the News Letter Journal that constituents had contacted him to express concerns about Clerk Hadlock moving forward with certifying the false results.
“My concern is that I have constituents calling me saying 'I voted for you,' and that their votes haven’t been counted,” Neiman told the News Letter Journal. “Whether they were for or against me, I want to make sure people have their votes counted.”
He said that he was first made aware of the issue when a friend from Buffalo who had seen the results called and asked what he did to upset the voters in Weston County. He said that his friend said something looked “fishy.”
Neiman was then contacted by Dan Fouch, an Osage resident, who expressed concern that his vote was not counted because Neiman only received two votes in Osage despite 164 ballots being cast. Fouch reported that he personally knew of more Osage residents who had voted for Neiman.
It is unclear when Hadlock actually accepted that the results she announced were not accurate, but the Wyoming Secretary of State told the News Letter Journal that the error is a direct result of actions taken by Hadlock in preparing for the election.
“The county clerk used incorrect ballots during the election,” Gray said in an email. “The printing of ballots and the distribution of the correct ballots is a duty of the county clerk, which was done incorrectly by Clerk Hadlock.”
The state official also confirmed that Hadlock had been informed that there was an issue with the vote count prior to her telling the NLJ that the tally was legitimate on Wednesday morning.
“I immediately contacted the county clerk on Tuesday evening when it became known, as well as the County Clerks’ Association of Wyoming and the Attorney General’s Office,” Gray said, expressing dismay over the performance of the Weston County Clerk.
“I’m deeply troubled by the actions of Clerk Hadlock,” he stated in the email.
Citizens reported at Thursday’s commission meeting that concerns had already existed over Hadlock’s handling of the election, and Weston County Republican Party Chairwoman Kari Drost testified at the meeting that the error in the tabulation of the House District 1 race was the direct result of a string of deficiencies.
In an email Drost sent to the News Letter Journal on October 27 in response to the newspaper’s concerns over Hadlock’s election performance and reporting, she had already expressed fear that the county clerk’s behavior would damage the integrity of the upcoming election.
“When the machines were tested before the primary, Becky (Hadlock) failed and had to re-test. I asked her to test early for the general election so that there would be time to re-test,” she told the News Letter Journal. She noted that she was given “a million” excuses on why Hadlock could not perform a re-test.
Drost was eventually informed — on the morning of the last possible day that a re-test could be conducted — that Hadlock had consented to hold the re-test, but no opportunity was given to provide notice to the general public. Drost said she asked Hadlock what she would do if the machines failed because there was no time to re-test again, and Hadlock brushed off the concern with an assurance that the machines would not fail.
“Well, guess what? She failed. The attorney for the WRP (Wyoming Republican Party) Brian Shuck told me that the precinct results were an ‘epic’ fail …, probably the worst fail he has seen in any county. Brian called Michael Stulken (Weston County Attorney) and told him of the failure and asked Michael what he wanted to do and offered his (Brian’s) help to do a good test of the machines,” Drost told the News Letter Journal in an email on October 27. “Brian called twice on Friday and left a message and has not received a call back yet.”
She then questioned whether or not she should query Hadlock and raise concerns about the machines prior to the election.
“If I call out her incompetence, then the voters may not trust the election results and may think their vote does not matter. But it does matter,” Drost said in the email.
She noted that everyone’s vote matters and that, because of the concerns, she had reservations about trusting election results reported from Weston County.
Her worst fear ended up coming true, she said, at least in one race.
Those fears are shared by state officials, however, and because of the anomaly, Gray said that he is “insisting the county canvassing board undertake a review of the ballots to determine accurate counts prior to certification of official results to our office.”
He noted that the notice of the canvassing board meeting should be published and the meeting should be open to the public.
On Thursday morning, during the Board of Weston County Commissioners meeting, Hadlock assured the commissioners and members of the public who attended that the results would not be certified until the investigation is complete.
She also reported that the canvassing board is tentatively scheduled to meet Friday at 2 p.m. in the commissioners’ room at the Weston County Courthouse, but later in the afternoon informed Weston County GOP Chair Kari Drost that the canvassing board will meet on Friday, November 8, at 10 a.m. at the courthouse to certify election results.
When the ballots were counted again at that time it was determined that the vote counts in the Weston County Commission race were also wrong, and recounts were conducted for that race in addition to the one that was held for House District 1.
After the recount, the number of votes cast for Chip Neiman in the House District 1 race increased from 166 to 1,268 and the number of write-ins increased from 8 to 29. The undervotes went from the 1,289 first reported by Hadlock on election night to 166 after the recount.
The change in vote tallies were not as significant in the county commission race, but Commissioner Ed Wagoner's total increased by 62 votes, from 2,362 to 2,424 and Matry Ertman's tally dropped 62 votes, from 2,225 to 2,163. Both were elected as they were running unopposed for two available seats.