Laramie County Clerk: Voting Drop Box Is Safe From Fraud

Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee says she's confident that the county's lone voting drop box is safe from fraud and she doesn't see any reason to stop using it.

She also said that the County Attorney is reviewing the legalities of using a drop box for voting, but unless something changes Laramie County voters will once again be able to drop off their ballots at the drop box at the Laramie County Government Complex

Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray recently sent a letter to the state's 23 county clerks, reading in part “Given the differing interpretations of my predecessors’ support for drop boxes, I want to be unequivocally clear: I do not believe drop boxes represent a safe, secure, or statutory basis for absentee voting. For this reason, I believe they should not be used in the 2024 Election and beyond. The plain language of W.S. 22-9-113, which provides that completed absentee ballots be ‘mailed or delivered to the clerk,’ does not allow for unattended ballot drop boxes as a means of delivering absentee ballots to the clerk."

In response to Gray's statement, the Wyoming County Clerk's Association released a statement that reads in part: ''To be clear, we continue to believe that the use of ballot drop boxes are yet another administrative function permitted by statute and that the use of that delivery method is left to the discretion of the County Clerk."

It goes on to say ''We hold that the use of ballot drop boxes as a method of ballot delivery is safe, secure, and statutorily authorized."

Lee told Townsquare Media on Friday that the Laramie County drop box is monitored by a security camera 24/7 and is emptied at least once a day, and more often when heavily used. She also pointed out there have been no allegations of voter fraud in Laramie County.