Voting starts slow on Primary Day

CASPER, Wyo. — Political prognosticators are probably pondering the paltry participation on Primary Day.

“It’s been pretty slow, pretty quiet,” said Diahann Franklin, election judge manager at the Restoration Church, 411 S. Walsh Drive.

When the poll doors opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday, the lines were short compared to recent Primary Elections, when voters at the Industrial Building at the Natrona County Fairgrounds were lined to the Arena to the south.

Only 20 voters were queued for the consolidated polling place for 14 precincts, and only five lined up at the consolidated six-precinct Restoration Church polling place.

In 2022, Harriet Hageman sought to unseat U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney in the Republican Primary. Despite her overwhelming support in voting for legislation supported by former President Donald Trump, Cheney garnered national scorn for the hearings she conducted about his incitement of his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, and the resulting riot at the Capitol. Hageman handily defeated Cheney.

That in turn successfully resurrected a law proposed several times before to thwart voters from switching party affiliations to vote in the GOP primary. The law to ban party-jumping had little effect on that race.

The new law requiring party changing to take place before the Primary Election required it to occur by May 15, before candidates began filing to run from May 16–31. Therefore, there is speculation that voters who wanted to change parties but missed the May 15 deadline may have blown off voting in the primary.

Franklin said people may have figured there wasn’t much to vote on in the Primary, despite many local issues being essentially decided then, because most candidates are Republican. (The Casper City Council is among the few local nonpartisan contests.) Some said the only race of interest is the presidential race, and people will vote on that alone and leave the rest of the ballot blank.

Even so, poll workers waved little signs letting voters know where to check in before going to their precincts. However, the red, white and blue bling of previous elections was missing from nearly all the poll workers at the Fairgrounds and Restoration Church — except for Franklin, who said she always wears hers.

For more information, visit the Natrona County elections website.