Actually, the old saying goes, Wyoming: where men are men and sheep are nervous. I have not personally witnessed this type of anxiety on the part of any sheep or other livestock in Wyoming, but I'm not saying it isn't true. For most people, this saying alone is enough to keep them from thinking about living here. Although there are some definite down sides to living here, the voting process is not one of them. At least, I witnessed no attempts at voter intimidation, no outright voter suppression, and no illegal activity on the part of the election officials.
This year, for the first time, I was an election judge for the primary and general elections here in Campbell County, Wyoming. After reading timroff's diary (
http://www.dailykos.com/...), I have decided that although there are certainly times when I absolutely hate living in redneck Campbell County surrounded by Republicans and "born-agains," I am thankful that these kinds of tactics are not perpetrated against voters here. Maybe here, officials are just too stupid to do these things. Maybe they are too lazy. Maybe they actually take pride in their jobs and are concerned about doing the right thing. After having been an election judge, I do know that at least in Campbell County, there was not a concerted effort to disenfranchise voters.
Voting was very steady. It's hard for me to imagine the kinds of lines that the people in Colorado and other places experienced. I think the longest that anyone waited in line in our precinct was about 20 minutes. Wyoming allows voter registration at the polls, and we had a lot of new voters, which was great to see.
At any rate, I am thankful that I live here, even though I live amongst a sea of Republicans, because at least I was able to cast my vote without intimidation and I am confident that my vote was counted correctly.
Until Campbell County's results were posted, the results were so encouraging that Trauner might win. I know that Trauner had a very effective and very energetic campaign in much of the state, but it was sorely lacking here in Campbell County. I signed up to work for Trauner's campaign 3 times on his website. Each time, I received an email saying that someone from my county would be in touch with me. No one was ever in touch. I think the lack of an organized campaign on the ground in Campbell County made a big difference in this race. In CC, Freudenthal lost to Bebout in 2004 by a 2:1 margin. Trauner lost to Cubin here by a 3:1 margin. If he had picked up enough voters in Campbell County to lose by only 2:1, he would have won the election. IMHO, to win a statewide race in Wyoming, any Democratic candidate will have to spend more time in Campbell County.
That being said, I really, really, really, really would LOVE to find out that Trauner has actually won the election. According to the secretary of state election results, Gary Trauner is currently 970 votes behind Cubin. This kind of a vote margin tells me that my vote actually makes a difference in Wyoming. Maybe not enough of a difference, but it DOES count. Too bad the sheep can't vote.....