Legislator sued over residency questions
CHEYENNE — Four Cheyenne residents on Friday filed a lawsuit against Rep. Dan Zwonitzer, R-Cheyenne, alleging that he cast a ballot using a false address and thus committed voter fraud. On Monday, the lawmaker rejected the allegations.
Last month, Wyoming Republican Party Chairman Frank Eathorne filed a complaint with the Secretary of State’s Office alleging that Zwonitzer did not live inside his district. This came after Joey Correnti IV, chairman of the Carbon County Republican Party, brought his concerns to the Wyoming Republican Party. The complaint was forwarded to the speaker of the House.
The new lawsuit, filed in the First Judicial District Court of Wyoming in Laramie County, names as plaintiffs Eric Crosby, Sherry Crosby, Lynne Robin Goodspeed and Kathryn Kij. All four are listed as living within House District 43, Zwonitzer’s district.
Zwonitzer has previously said that his family did purchase a home outside his district, but that he was still residing in HD 43.
On Monday, Zwonitzer told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle that the case “doesn’t make sense, except to create political controversy.” He said that he expects it will be dismissed.
Zwonitzer serves as the co-chair of the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee, which has been tasked with the state’s decennial redistricting process following the 2020 Census. House Bill 100, “Redistricting of the legislature,” was previously sponsored by the Corporations Committee, but was transferred Monday to the Education Committee. That committee voted unanimously to forward the bill to the floor for debate.
Rep. Albert Sommers, R-Pinedale, who also serves as Majority Floor Leader, said the House will take up the issue of the lawsuit, if need be, Tuesday afternoon. When asked why the Education Committee took over HB 100, he said it was due to the “allegations against the Corporations chairman.”
“We just decided in leadership to segregate them until we deal with the allegations,” Sommers said.
Sommers said during the Education Committee meeting that, once on the House floor, every amendment to the redistricting bill will “push and pull” at the plan. If approved, HB 100 would expand the size of the Legislature to 62 representatives and 31 senators. After months of work, the Corporations Committee voted Friday to sponsor the bill.
“I want to take a few seconds to thank everybody that is sitting in this room, all those that didn’t speak, but most importantly I’d like to thank Chairman Zwonitzer and the co-chair (Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower) for the amount of work that it took to wrangle the amount of meetings around the state,” Rep. Landon Brown, R-Cheyenne, said. “You were very committed, and very impressive work was done by the committee.”
Brown said he took issue with previous comments that “people were happy” the bill came to the Education Committee instead of the Corporations Committee.
The suit alleged that in preparing invitations for a Precinct Caucus on Feb. 8, Sherry Crosby acquired a voter master list that included the previous address of a home Zwonitzer sold in 2021. Her husband, Eric Crosby, alleged that he noticed the same address was listed on a voter count for a bond election from November 2021.
The legal complaint said that Kij brought the issue to the attention of House Speaker Eric Barlow, R-Gillette, and reached out to the Legislative Service Office. The plaintiffs are asking that Zwonitzer produce evidence of his address last November, as well as disclose his present address.
“I trust in the process, and fully believe I am in compliance with the state Constitution and state statute regarding my residency,” Zwonitzer said in a previous interview. “I will do anything asked of me.”
This story was published on Feb. 15.