{"id":4332,"date":"2026-08-28T23:33:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T23:33:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=4332"},"modified":"2026-08-28T23:33:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T23:33:42","slug":"wyoming-governor-requests-investigation-into-activity-of-justice-department-monitors-during-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=4332","title":{"rendered":"Wyoming governor requests investigation into activity of Justice Department monitors during primary"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…<\/strong><\/div>\n
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By MEAD GRUVER<\/strong><\/p>\n

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) \u2014 Wyoming\u2019s attorney general is investigating how two U.S. Department of Justice officials monitored poll workers and observed voters in the state\u2019s most populous county during the Aug. 18 primary, a spokesperson for Republican Gov. Mark Gordon said Friday.<\/p>\n

Read more Former Colorado doctor charged with attempted murder after shootout with marshals in Florida<\/a><\/p>\n

Gordon called the monitors\u2019 behavior \u201ca bit aggressive\u201d and \u201cirregular\u201d in an otherwise routine meeting to confirm the election results in the mostly rural and Republican state.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel very strongly about the federal government coming in and taking our guns. I don\u2019t like that. I don\u2019t like the federal government coming in and taking our votes, either,\u201d Gordon said at the meeting Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Gordon spokesperson Amy Edmonds on Friday confirmed the investigation by Attorney General Keith Kautz, who was appointed by the governor.<\/p>\n

Voting rights groups have raised concern about President Donald Trump\u2019s Justice Department shifting priorities away from enforcing civil rights laws with respect to voting. Trump instead has directed federal prosecutors to search for fraud in the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

Trump has meanwhile been more assertive about influencing the department, including encouraging investigations of political opponents, in his second term.<\/p>\n

Approaching the end of his second and final term in office, Gordon has publicly expressed little if any previous criticism of federal polices under Trump.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

The monitoring happened in southeastern Wyoming\u2019s Laramie County, home to the state capital, Cheyenne.<\/p>\n

The monitors arrived soon after polls opened at 7 a.m. on primary day and said they intended to interview voters while assessing compliance with federal civil rights and voting rights laws, Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Lee said her office didn\u2019t allow interviews to be conducted in polling places and denied the monitors permission to do so. The monitors questioned local officials about \u201cthe nature, length and timing of poll worker training,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMonitors requested training guides, asked how our new election equipment was acquired and wanted to examine our tabulators,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

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Wyoming law allows only election observation by certified poll watchers who monitor registration and turnout, Lee said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a poorly managed exercise and one that showed complete disregard for our state laws and administration of our elections,\u201d Lee said in the statement.<\/p>\n

Read more Amazon spends $24M for new distribution center in Aurora<\/a><\/p>\n

She said she hadn\u2019t been notified the monitors would be in Laramie County. A Justice Department official in Washington told her the decision to send them was made on short notice and an email was sent to her but \u201cmay have gone to the wrong address,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department routinely sends monitors to observe polling places or election offices, but they are not supposed to interfere with voting or election administration.<\/p>\n

The DOJ did not answer questions about the monitors Friday but referred to a primary day statement by Darin Smith, the U.S. attorney for Wyoming. He said monitors would be in the state \u201cto ensure transparency, ballot security, and strict compliance with federal voting rights statutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVoters deserve absolute confidence that their ballots are secure and their voices are heard without interference,\u201d Smith said in the statement. \u201cWe are working alongside local officials to ensure every lawful vote is protected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Appointed by the governor, Wyoming\u2019s attorney general works mainly in the service of the executive branch and is not politically independent as in other states.<\/p>\n

No one, including Gordon, is asserting the monitoring influenced the election outcome, Edmonds said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a fact-finding mission just to sort of figure out exactly what did happen,\u201d Edmonds said.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s fraud claims about the 2020 election have been amplified by Wyoming\u2019s Republican secretary of state, Chuck Gray, who successfully ran in 2022 in part by showing a discredited documentary about those claims at campaign rallies across the state.<\/p>\n

Gray told Gordon at the elections meeting that his office \u201cgot an email,\u201d but that was all the communication it had with the Justice Department about the federal officials. Wyoming law allows election observers, Gray said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly happy to visit with the attorney general,\u201d Gray told the governor during the meeting. \u201cTransparency is so important, and accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gray is not seeking reelection as secretary of state and won the Republican nomination for Wyoming\u2019s seat in the U.S. House during the primary.<\/p>\n

Read more Far-right British provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos arrested by US immigration enforcement<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican Gov. Mark Gordon has raised concerns about how two Justice Department officials arrived in Laramie County and asked election workers questions, including about their training during the state primary. Gordon says the behavior was \u201cirregular\u201d and \u201ca bit aggressive.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-politics","category-news","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nWyoming governor requests investigation into activity of Justice Department monitors during primary - Colorado Springs Moverss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=4332\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wyoming governor requests investigation into activity of Justice Department monitors during primary - Colorado Springs Moverss\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Republican Gov. 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