• Closed primary, deadline to choose party affiliation will remain as-is for time being.

By Jasmine Hall
Jackson Hole News&Guide
Via- Wyoming News Exchange

JACKSON — Wyoming’s closed primary election system and its May party affiliation deadline will remain intact.

On July 22, a Natrona County judge dismissed a case challenging the deadline for registered voters. This was the second time that Judge Daniel Forgey found that Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jimmy Skovgard had no standing to sue Secretary of State Chuck Gray.

Skovgard’s first lawsuit was dismissed in April, and he filed a new one again in June. 

He was joined by five other registered voters from four different counties, who alleged the system restricted their ability to pick their preferred candidate and that the deadline violated the Wyoming and U.S. constitutions. He represented himself and the other plaintiffs without an attorney.

“Needless to say, I’m a little disappointed with the judge,” Mills resident Skovgard said on Tuesday. “I think he could have, you know, stepped up. At least he could have heard me and the five plaintiffs. Instead, he chooses to dismiss because he doesn’t want to do his job, and that’s sad.”

He said the judicial branch was “there to protect the rights of the minority,” including the thousands of registered unaffiliated voters who can’t pick a Republican or Democratic candidate in the primary.

“He’s not listening to the people,” Skovgard said.

The law at the center of the case was passed in 2023.

The Wyoming Legislature required voters to choose a party for the primary in mid-May, the day before the candidate filing period begins for primary elections.

Skovgard said he’s already met voters on the campaign trail who can’t change their affiliation before the Aug. 18 election and feel frustrated.

Previously, registered voters could change or select Republican, Democrat or unaffiliated for the primary election up to and on election day. Wyomingites who are registering to vote for the first time or reregistering after their registration lapsed can still declare their party affiliation.

By and large, Wyoming races are decided in the primary election. Republicans who win their party’s nomination go on to dominate the general election, either by default because they face no Democrat or because nearly all 23 counties are red.

Judge Daniel Forgery didn’t weigh in on whether the law or closed primary system was constitutional or not. He analyzed whether Skovgard and the five voters had the right to file a lawsuit in the first place.

Gray’s legal team argued the plaintiffs didn’t have legal standing for many reasons, including the following: The court had already ruled Skovgard doesn’t have standing; the voters who are plaintiffs are arguing the primary system and not the timeline is causing alleged injury; and the voters already intended to support Skovgard’s nomination before the party registration deadline. Forgey agreed that they didn’t have standing for “substantially the same reasons.”

“They have not identified or established an existing, nonspeculative, particularized, personal harm from the statutes at issue,” Forgey wrote in his order dismissing the case, “that they have or will be particularly affected by the statute(s) in such a way that would be legally cognizable under Wyoming’s standing law (they are not unique amongst other Wyoming voters) or that their requested relief would redress the harm(s) they claim.”

Gray applauded Forgey’s decision in a press release Thursday. He called it a “win” and a “common-sense order siding with our position and dismissing this outrageously wrong lawsuit brought by the radical left.”

“Wyoming’s primary system is vital to the integrity of Wyoming’s elections,” Gray said. “Primary elections like Wyoming’s withstand scrutiny around the country as a basic method of choosing candidates for the general election. These baseless lawsuits show how far the radical left will go to dismantle the core systems of our republic.”

Gray has already asked the Legislature to tighten the deadline to change parties further. 

He approached lawmakers on the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee in March and asked them “to strengthen that lockout to Jan. 1 of the election year.”

Rep. Joe Webb, R-Lyman, requested a bill draft to bring the concept to life. The committee will consider the draft for the 2027 legislative session at a future meeting.