Speaking at a Greater Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce lunch Friday, Buchanan sought to dispel myths about the election process.
Buchanan was appointed in 2018 by former Gov. Matt Mead. His office's duties include overseeing state elections.
We no longer live in a time where our elections are taken for granted, Buchanan said. He said this is largely due to allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S.'s 2016 elections, which American intelligence agencies and a bipartisan Senate committee say took place, along with allegations in 2020 of a "rigged" presidential election.
Buchanan's intention was to counter what he said was misinformation about election integrity and security in Wyoming. Still, he said his office decided not to dismiss out of hand any allegations about the 2020 election.
Members of the chamber who were in attendance voted in a poll about how confident they were in the state's elections. While a majority said they were confident in them, about 25% said they were only "fairly" confident.
"I think it's great that people do have at least a healthy amount of skepticism about their elections," Buchanan said.
But if that trust is totally lost, "you really don't have much else left," he said.
Buchanan said Wyoming's voting machines are not connected to the internet, despite allegations to the contrary. He said the state's machines don't have the software or hardware that would enable them to do so.
This is by design. Because the machines aren't online, "election results are not susceptible to being hacked or manipulated by nefarious actors," he said.
The way Wyoming conducts its elections is a bit old-fashioned, Buchanan said, which works here and actually makes its elections more secure.
Buchanan denied that Wyoming's elections were "rigged." He explained how elections are conducted in the state's 23 counties, including pre- and post-election audits to ensure voting machines are correctly counting ballots.
The official pointed out that pre-election audits are open to the public. He encouraged anyone who was interested in watching one to contact their county clerk.
He added that the state's voting machines also have extensive physical security, including locks and tamper-evident seals.
Disinformation
While speaking about misinformation and disinformation, Buchanan brought up Mike Lindell, a U.S. businessman.
Following the 2020 election, Lindell promoted the theory that voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion worked with foreign countries to rig machines and prevent former President Donald Trump from being re-elected.
Misinformation is considered false information created or spread without the intent of causing harm. Disinformation is considered deliberately false or manipulated information.
In a video clip, Lindell urged Wyoming to do an audit following the 2020 election. He questioned whether Dominion would even allow this to happen.
In fact, Buchanan said, all of Wyoming's voting machines in 2020 came from Election Systems & Software, a company based in Omaha. Before that, just three of the state's 23 counties used Dominion machines, he said.
Among other information that disproved Lindell's claims, Buchanan said, was that the vote share for Republican and Democrat votes in Wyoming has stayed largely the same over the years. This is the case for the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and the presidency, he said.
"If you want to talk about somebody hacking an election in Wyoming, I think you might expect to see that those numbers would change slightly," Buchanan said.
All of the information related to these claims don't show "a scintilla of evidence, or even suspicion, that Wyoming's elections were hacked, manipulated or anything of the sort," he said.
Buchanan said his office is currently working with the University of Wyoming to develop an even more accurate method for auditing voting machines. He said this involves pulling real ballots (rather than test ballots) and comparing a certain portion of them to the machine's results.
© 2022 Wyoming Tribune-Eagle (Cheyenne, Wyo.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
