Gray details Weston County clerk’s alleged misconduct in recommendation for removal
CASPER, Wyo. — Secretary of State Chuck Gray is calling for the governor to remove Weston County Clerk Becky Hadlock from her position, saying she made repeated errors in procedure during the 2024 election season and submitted a false audit report to his office, a two-year felony under state law.
Gray’s letter to Gov. Mark Gordon alleges multiple violations of Wyoming Election Code, including breach of protocol regarding chain of custody for ballots and seals, improper testing of tabulation machines and failure to properly train election judges.
“Our referral of this matter and recommendation to the Governor are not made lightly,” Gray said in a statement. “The pattern of misconduct exhibited by the Weston County Clerk is serious.”
During the primary election in August, Gray said that Hadlock was one of several clerks that did not assign a different number of votes for each candidate on ballots run through the machines during statutorily mandated pre-election logic and accuracy tests. Multiple election judges also complained to Hadlock about inadequately trained judges and failure “to follow appropriate safeguards and chain of custody for voting machine seals and keys to voting machines,” Gray wrote.
In the general election, Gray said Weston County polls received a mixed batch of ballots, two-thirds of which were improperly formatted. This resulted in only 166 votes for House District 1 Rep. Chip Neiman and over 1,200 undervotes.
A later hand count by the Weston County Canvassing Board revealed that Neiman had received 1,268 votes, Gray said in the letter.
Gray said that he tried to call Hadlock just before midnight on general election night and got a “a highly unprofessional voicemail” message on the clerk’s government line. Gray said Hadlock only called him back after he called the Weston County Sheriff’s Office to find her, at which point she reported no irregularities.
Gray said members of the public were told by Hadlock that the inordinate number of undervotes for Neiman were the result of a public protest against his policies. Gray said there were also reports that a poll watcher was given the duties of an election judge without the required training or taking of the oath.
Gray said that Hadlock’s post-election audit submitted on Nov. 6 reported “no issues,” but the second audit confirmed the canvassing board’s findings that there were discrepancies in 21 of 75 ballots.
Gray wrote that the submission of the first post-election audit appeared to be a willful violation of both administrative and criminal statutes, and that her conduct through the election cycle overall “shows a pattern of gross incompetence and even willful neglect of her duties as the chief election officer of Weston County.”
Gray also submitted his referral letter referring to Wyoming Attorney General Bridget Hill and Weston County Attorney Michael Stulken for further investigation.