CHEYENNE — Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, asked his state's attorney general to investigate the Justice Department's election monitors after state officials reported the federal observers overstepped their authority during last week's primary elections.
Gordon told the state canvassing board on Wednesday that the monitors' behavior "sounded like a bit aggressive" and that their "conduct seemed to exceed what the authority that Congress had given them was." He said state and local officials received no advance notice of the DOJ's deployment plans.
"The conduct of this election was phenomenal," Gordon said, framing his complaint as focused on the monitors' actions, not the election itself.
Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee, also a Republican, was more direct. She called the monitors' conduct "a poorly managed exercise and one that showed complete disregard for our state laws and administration of our elections." Lee directly managed the election operations where the monitors were present.
Lee said the DOJ informed her the decision to deploy monitors to Wyoming was made on short notice and that an email about their arrival "may have gone to the wrong address."
She reported that the monitors asked questions "outside the scope of federal voting rights laws," including requests for training guides, details on equipment acquisition and access to examine tabulators. Lee denied the monitors' requests to interview voters.
The Justice Department said it deployed two attorneys from its Civil Rights Division to Laramie County for the primary. The Wyoming U.S. attorney, Darin Smith, defended the effort in a statement on election day: "Voters deserve absolute confidence that their ballots are secure and their voices are heard without interference. We are working alongside local officials to ensure every lawful vote is protected."
The DOJ announced this week that it has deployed more than 80 election monitors to over 200 polling locations across seven states during this primary season.
