The Laramie Reporter 2022 Primary Election Guide

How (and where) to vote and how to check out your options before you get to the voting booth. Plus information about local races, crossover voting and new voter identification laws.

Wyoming’s primary election is Tuesday. A competitive race for the sheriff’s office, stark divisions between city council candidates, and a slew of prominent statewide contests are likely to draw Albany County residents to the polls.

The Laramie Reporter brings you this guide to the Albany County 2022 Primary Election. Below, you will find information about how and where to vote as well as links to candidate features and new stories about the names that appear on your ballot.

Find your precinct, your voting location and your sample ballot online

It can be a daunting task to figure out where you go to vote and what will be on your ballot when you get there. Thankfully, some online resources available through the local and state government make it quick and easy to look up.

First, you want to find your precinct. While statewide and countywide races will look the same for residents across Albany County, your precinct will determine the specific local races, like House District and city council ward, you get to vote in. Your precinct also determines your polling place — the building you must go to on Election Day to cast your vote.

Albany County has 11 precincts following this year’s redistricting process. You can find your precinct by checking out the county clerk’s map, and you can find your polling place by typing in your address on the Wyoming Secretary of State’s website.

Your precinct number tells you what House race and what city council race you’ll be voting in. For example, if you live in 13-2, you’ll be voting in the race for House District 13 and the race for City Council Ward 2. The number before the hyphen is your House District; the number after the hyphen is your council ward. (If you live in 46-0 or 14-0, you live beyond the city limits and therefore do not get to vote in the city council election at all.)

Click the link for your polling place location on this page and you can download your sample ballot from the sidebar. Republicans and Democrats have different ballots for the primary.

Local races

About half of Albany County will get to vote for a state senator. In Senate District 9, Democrats have Chris Rothfuss; Republicans have Diana Seabeck.

Every registered Democrat and Republican in Albany County gets to vote in a Wyoming House of Representatives race. In most house races, candidates are running unopposed in the primary, but there are Republican primary contests in HD-14 and HD-46. On the primary ballot:

• In House District 13, Democrats have Ken Chestek; Republicans have Wayne Pinch.

• In House District 14, Democrats have Trey Sherwood; Republicans can vote for Julie McCallister or Bryan Shuster.

• In House District 45, Democrats have Karlee Provenza; Republicans can write-in candidates.

• In House District 46, Democrats have Merav Ben-David; Republicans can vote for Ocean Andrew or R. J. Lennox.

Everyone in Albany County gets to vote in the County Commission race. Democrats have Pete Gosar; Republicans can vote for Terri Jones, Tony Kirchhoefer or Heber Richardson — one of whom will be eliminated during the primary.

In the race for the Albany County Sheriff’s Office:

• Democrats get to choose between Aaron Appelhans, Curtis Lee Moore and Zeb Gladney.

• Republicans get to choose between Rafael Delgadillo and Joel Senior.

City council races are non-partisan and the primary is used to narrow the field to twice as many candidates as there are open seats.

• In Ward 1, residents can vote for Allison Cunningham, Micah Richardson or Fred Schmechel.

• In Ward 2, residents can vote for Michael Armagost, Chris Dixon, Brett Glass, Ray Kasckow or Brandon Newman.

• In Ward 3, residents can vote for Erin O’Doherty and/or Joe Shumway.

Most voters will also see options for county attorney, county clerk, county assessor, county treasurer, coroner, and clerk of district court — but there are no primary contests in any of these races. In four of these races — for attorney, assessor, treasurer and clerk of district court — the incumbent is running completely unopposed.

Statewide races

Albany County voters will be able to vote in the U.S. House of Representatives race. While the nation watches the Republican primary in that race, there is also a Democratic primary for Wyoming’s only House seat.

County residents will also be able to vote for governor, secretary of state, superintendent of public instruction, state treasurer and state auditor.

In Wyoming, you can register to vote or change parties on Election Day

You can register to vote on Election Day at your polling place; if you’re already registered to vote, you can also change your party affiliation if you desire.

Some voters change their party affiliation because they earnestly experience a shift in their political beliefs, but switching parties on Election Day can be a political tactic.

“Crossover voting” describes the practice of flipping one’s official party affiliation not because one’s political convictions have shifted, but because flipping one’s official party affiliation allows a voter to take part in a different primary election.

In 2018, Wyoming saw a fierce battle for the governor’s mansion. Among the contenders were GOP mega-donor Foster Friess and then-State Treasurer Mark Gordon. Friess was seen as farther to the right than Gordon and the primary contest between them was a prominent example of the growing rift between conservative but moderate Wyoming Republicans and the party’s far-right faction.

When Gordon won the primary, Friess immediately launched a campaign to eradicate crossover voting, suggesting that Gordon had only won with the help of “crossover” Democratic voters. Efforts to outlaw crossover voting have continued, but the practice remains legal.

In a state like Wyoming, which has closed primaries, only Democrats may vote in the Democratic primary and only Republicans may vote in the Republican primary. They both report to the same polling places on the same election day, but their ballots have different options when it comes to partisan races.

So a Democrat re-registering as a Republican on Primary Election Day will get to vote in the Republican primary. The advantage to this is that if there is a contest between a more centrist Republican and more far-right Republican, the formerly Democratic voter can vote for the centrist. The disadvantage is that the formerly Democratic voter will have no say in the Democratic primary.

But that might not matter much to a Democratic voter in Albany County, where there is only one race in which Democrats face Democrats in the primary election.

That one race is for sheriff, where three candidates are vying for the Democratic nomination.

None of the local House or Senate races have Democratic primaries, and there is only one Democrat running for the two available county commission seats.

City council races are non-partisan, so one’s party affiliation — or lack thereof — doesn’t affect what appears on the ballot.

Of course, local races are not the only ones on the ballot. And there are several statewide races that feature competitive Democratic primaries. But in deep red Wyoming, the winners of those statewide primaries are likely to lose in the general, when they face the winners of the Republican primary.

The most prominent example of this is the race for Wyoming’s sole U.S. House seat, between incumbent Liz Cheney and challenger Harriet Hageman. Hageman has a significant lead over Cheney and Cheney has been appealing to Independents and Democrats to register Republican and help her win the primary. Larger numbers of voters than usual are crossing over — and 98 percent of Democratic crossover voters do support Cheney — but it’s unlikely to alter the primary’s outcome.

Don’t forget your ID

The State Legislature passed a new law in 2021 requiring that voters show ID at the polls. A pair of Laramie lawyers have launched a lawsuit against this law, pointing out that Wyoming voters are already required to show ID when they register to vote and that voter ID laws tend to depress voter turnout. The suit is ongoing.

State and local election officials are reminding voters to bring their ID to the polls so they don’t get turned away. A list of acceptable identification documents can be found on the Wyoming Secretary of State’s website.