Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee says she is very confident in the integrity of local and state election results in 2020.

In an August 1 interview on KGAB's ''Weekend In Wyoming'' program, Lee was asked if she was concerned about election fraud in view of the fact that an unusually high number of voters are expected to vote by mail this year. ''In Wyoming, I am not'' Lee said. She added that mail-in ballots are not mailed out to every voter, but only those who ask for them. The returned ballots are then closely counted by bi-partisan election judges, with the returned ballots compared to lists of the people to whom they were sent.

The Wyoming Primary Election is scheduled for Tuesday, August 18. The 2020 General Election across the United States is slated for Tuesday, November 3.

She also said Wyoming voters take elections very seriously and tend to do a good job of keeping elections fair. The state historically has had a very low incidence of complaints about alleged election fraud.

For people who choose to vote in person, the county's election centers will be observing measures designed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Those measures will include social distancing, and voters will be given plastic straws so that they can avoid directly touching the voting machines. Lee says crowds also will not be allowed to gather in the voting centers.

Because of the COVID-19 precautions, Lee says it may take a little longer for local voters who choose to physically cast a ballot to do so. Lee also says that due to the unusually high number of people voting absentee this year, final election results maybe a little later in coming in than is usually the case.

That's because counting mail-in ballots in a multi-step process that takes longer than counting ballots cast at physical voting centers.

You can hear the entire Debra Lee interview from the ''Weekend in Wyoming" program in the audio attached to this article. One important note: since the interview was conducted on Saturday, the Monday deadline for registering to vote before the primary that she refers to was Monday, August 3, rather than this coming Monday, August 10.

The History of Presidential Elections in Wyoming

 

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