Teton County's primary turnout lowest in at least a decade

JACKSON (WNE) —- Just over a quarter of voters registered to vote in Teton County cast ballots — the lowest voter turnout in a primary since 2010.

Only 3,505 people cast ballots in the Tuesday primary out of 12,555 registered voters in Teton County, a turnout rate of 27.9%.

In contrast, in 2022, nearly 8,500 people voted out of 15,586 registered voters, a 54.5% turnout. Between 2010 and 2014, primary turnout averaged around 40%.

“I think it’s low turnout because it’s a primary,” polling volunteer Mary Lou Klene told the News&Guide. “Also, there are not a lot of contested races.”

While there were a plethora of contested Republican primaries elsewhere as the more moderate Wyoming Caucus battled with the hard-right Wyoming Freedom Caucus for control of the Wyoming Legislature, none of Teton County’s delegates to Cheyenne were challenged in their primaries — and none are expected to be challenged in the general.

There were no high-profile statewide races this year, unlike the 2022 primary where Liz Cheney ran for reelection against Harriet Hageman, and lost her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

That race drew international attention. Tuesday’s primary did not.

The dearth of votes in the Democratic primary hints at another possible cause: Changing rules in Wyoming that barred crossover voting. After the 2022 Cheney-Hageman showdown, the Wyoming Legislature passed a new law in 2023 that prevented voters from changing their party affiliation after candidates file for office.

As Wyoming has drifted right for the past decade or so, primaries have determined the outcome of statewide races. But voters who crossed over in the 2022 primary may have forgotten to change their affiliation in time to cast a Democratic ballot in Teton County’s primaries.

The state also purged about 83,000 voters from the state’s voter rolls in 2024, focusing on people who didn’t vote in the 2022 election.

This story was published on August 21, 2024.