DOJ election observers exceeded legal scope, demanded records, sought voter interviews at Laramie County, Wyoming polls, clerk and governor say

On August 18, 2026, Wyoming's primary election day, two U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division attorneys deployed to Laramie County -- the state's most populous -- as part of a DOJ "monitoring initiative" announced the same day. The two identified themselves to a poll worker as DOJ election monitors and did not produce credentials until Clerk Debra Lee asked them to. Lee said the monitors then asked questions "outside the scope of federal voting rights laws," including about the nature, length, and timing of poll-worker training; requested training guides and records on how the county's election equipment was acquired; and sought to examine the county's vote tabulators. When the monitors said they also intended to interview voters "to assess compliance with federal civil rights and voting rights law," Lee refused, citing a rule against conducting interviews inside polling places.

Neither the Wyoming Attorney General's office, the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security, nor the Laramie County Clerk's Office was notified in advance of the deployment, according to Gov. Mark Gordon; the Secretary of State's elections division said only that it had received an email. Lee said a DOJ official later told her the decision to send monitors to Wyoming was made on short notice. Lee called the episode "a poorly managed exercise and one that showed complete disregard for our state laws and administration of our elections." Gordon, at an August 26 state canvassing board meeting, said the observers' "behavior seemed to exceed what the authority that Congress had given them was" and that he had asked Attorney General Ryan Schelhaas to examine the matter, while stressing he was not objecting to election observation itself and that the primary's conduct was "phenomenal." The DOJ did not respond to press inquiries about the conduct. Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who assisted DOJ in obtaining the state's voter data in 2025, disputed Gordon's characterization and pointed to a same-day statement from U.S. Attorney Darin Smith saying his office was "working alongside local officials to ensure every lawful vote is protected."