Wyoming subcommittee probes Weston County post‑election audit after clerk fails to appear under subpoena

A Wyoming legislative subcommittee convened Oct. 15 to review a disputed post‑election audit and the handling of the 2024 Weston County election, including a hand count that corrected earlier unofficial results. The session focused on why the county’s initial post‑election audit reported no errors for a sample of ballots while a later hand count found dozens of mismatches. The Weston County clerk, Becky Hadlock, was subpoenaed to appear but did not attend the subcommittee meeting. Subcommittee members said they will pursue the legal process for that failure to appear.

The meeting’s purpose, Chairwoman Rodriguez Williams said, was “to investigate issues surrounding the post election audit by the Weston County Clerk following the 2024 primary election,” and to prepare a report for the Management Audit Committee. Members heard detailed testimony from the Wyoming secretary of state, county election workers who conducted the hand count and local journalists who reported from Weston County. Much of the session centered on the post‑election audit process, recordkeeping and whether the statutory safeguards and chain‑of‑custody practices were followed.

Why it matters: state election officials said the episode exposed a gap in oversight that could let major tabulation errors go undetected unless there is an unusually large anomaly. Secretary of State Chuck Gray told the subcommittee his office’s independent investigation concluded the clerk submitted a “false post election audit” and referred the case to the county attorney and the state attorney general, and recommended removal under Wyoming statute 18‑3‑902. Gray said the governor…