I recently participated in the Corporations, Elections, and Political Subdivisions Committee meeting in Lander. As we debated whether to advance election integrity bills, the familiar argument made every meeting and, in every session, appeared: Wyoming has very few prosecuted cases of election or voter fraud, so election integrity bills are a waste of time and money. Some go further and say that if similar bills have failed before, legislators should stop bringing them.
As I stated in committee, that argument misunderstands both history and self-government. Many important laws did not pass the first time they were introduced. They took repeated attempts, public debate, revisions, resistance, and persistence. Women’s suffrage is one of Wyoming’s best examples. Although Wyoming granted women the right to vote in 1869, long before much of the country was willing to accept it, other states rejected the idea. Congress rejected it for decades. Yet supporters kept bringing the issue forward until the nation finally ratified the 19th Amendment.
The fact that a reform failed repeatedly did not mean it was wrong; it meant the country had not yet found the will to do what was right. America did not abolish slavery because a bill passed the first time someone introduced it. Abolition came after decades of petitions, defeats, blocked debates, partial victories, and even a gag order prohibiting discussion on the House floor. History does not remember those efforts as a waste of time. It remembers them as persistence in the face of resistance.
Repetition is not proof that a bill is bad. Sometimes repetition is exactly how reform happens. The Civil Rights Act, the Freedom of Information Act, child-labor protections, and many other major laws took repeated attempts before they passed. Critics called them unnecessary, controversial, expensive, or impossible. But persistence did not make those reforms foolish. It made them law.
Wyoming should not wait for a crisis before strengthening its election laws. The fact that there are few prosecutions does not prove there are no vulnerabilities. Election integrity is not limited to criminal fraud cases. It includes voter eligibility, accurate ballots, clean voter rolls, lawful procedures, transparent audits, and public confidence.
Recent Wyoming examples show why these issues matter. Weston County’s 2024 election problems involved incorrect ballots, miscounts, investigations, and controversy over the clerk’s removal. In 2025, the Secretary of State announced that three noncitizen voter records had been removed and referred for further review. Those examples may not prove widespread fraud, but they do prove that mistakes, vulnerabilities, and eligibility issues can occur here. And these are the situations that have been reported.
Preventing problems before they spread is not a waste of time. It is responsible governance. Wyoming has a long tradition of leading on voting rights and election law. We did not wait for Congress or national consensus when we gave women the right to vote. We must not wait until public confidence has collapsed or a major failure occurs before we act.By the time fraud is proven, the damage may already be done. Election safeguards are meant to keep the horse in the barn, not write a report after it is gone.
Every lawful voter deserves to know that their vote is not canceled out by an unlawful one or by a flawed process. Every candidate deserves a fair process. Every citizen deserves elections that are accurate, transparent, and trusted.
Election
integrity is not a waste of time. It is one of the duties of self-government.
Ann Lucas is the elected representative of Wyoming House District 43.