NEWS
The Sheridan County Clerk's Office began the public testing of election voting machines at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, July 13, under the supervision of County Clerk Eda Schunk-Thompson. Also present for the testing were Sheridan County Republican Party Chairwoman Sharon McCright, Sheridan County Democratic Party Chairwoman Becky Mix, and five members of the public.
Several attendees expressed concern over the low public turnout for the testing, though many believed the limited attendance may have been the result of the short notice provided.
Wyoming Statute 22-10-108(a) requires that before preparing a voting machine for an election, the county clerk must post public notice in the county clerk's office and on the county clerk's website, as well as notifying the county chairman of each political party with a candidate on the ballot, and all independent candidates. The statute specifies these notifications must be made no later than two (2) days before the testing of a voting machine, or at least twenty-four (24) hours before any re-test.
According to those present, political party officials received the required written notice, and a public notice was posted on the bulletin board in the Clerk's Office. However, the notice on the Clerk's website was not posted until late Saturday night. Because the public test began at 8:30 a.m. on Monday morning, the website posting did not provide the full two-day notice required by Wyoming Statute 22-10-108(a).
The Open Range Record spoke with the Wyoming Secretary of State's Office regarding the applicable statute and was informed that an email had been sent to every county clerk in the state on June 26. The email included detailed instructions and checklists designed to help ensure compliance with statutory requirements and all applicable election laws.
The first phase of testing involved the absentee ballot tabulation machine (DS-450), which processed the complete test deck of ballots: 3,132 ballots. After the initial run, several ballot tabulation discrepancies were identified. Officials initially suspected the issue stemmed from a data stick that had not been updated.Mark Rambur, the county's Information Technology Manager, updated the data stick, and the entire test deck was processed a second time. However, the tabulation discrepancies remained.
As the testing continued, members of the public were provided lunch by the Clerk's Office while Clerk Schunk-Thompson and members of her staff manually reviewed the test ballots in an effort todetermine the source of the discrepancies.During the delay, a couple of members of the public suggested postponing the testing to allow additional time to identify and correct the issue. They also recommended rescheduling the public test so that a new notice could be posted in full compliance with Wyoming Statute 22-10-108(a), ensuring the public would receive the complete notice period required by law.
Although the suggestion was initially met with hesitation, Clerk Schunk-Thompson later announced that the testing would be rescheduled. In an email sent later that day, she wrote:
"This is Eda Schunk Thompson, Sheridan County Clerk. We have an update for you. We discovered human duplicating errors in our test ballot run today. We fixed those errors today and are ready to test on Thursday, July 16, at 8:00 a.m.”
Public testing resumed as scheduled on Thursday, July 16, at 8:00 a.m., after the duplicated test ballot errors identified during Monday's testing had been corrected.
Following the day's failed testing and subsequent rescheduling, many expected the issue to be addressed during the Sheridan County Republican Party's evening candidate debates. Moderator David Iverson kept the debate open for Schunk-Thompson, who had RSVP’ed prior to the event, until 5:59 p.m. However, she did not arrive. According to the Sheridan County Republican Party, the clerk did not notify them she would be absent.