A petition to limit Wyoming voters’ ability to change political parties during an election year found plenty of support at the Park County Republican Party Caucus in Powell on Saturday. The effort seeks to prohibit voters from changing political parties after May 1 — a couple weeks before the filing period opens and well ahead of the August primary. Currently, voters can switch all the way through election day. Wyoming lawmakers have so far been reluctant to change the law, with the most recent bill to change the process dying in the Senate’s corporation committee last week. The petition that local Republicans were encouraged to sign on Saturday would bypass the Legislature and put the issue directly before Wyoming voters.

“The objective of this is to keep our primary a Republican primary,” said Martin Kimmet, chairman of the Park County Republican Party.

According to statistics released from the Secretary of State’s office, 12,509 voters changed party affiliation in the weeks before and after the 2018 primary election, including about 10,900 Democrats, Libertarians, Constitutionalists and unaffiliated voters who became Republicans.

“In a state our size, that’s enough to skew our primary,” Kimmet said.

It’s believed that a significant number of Democratic and independent voters joined the GOP before the 2018 primary to support Mark Gordon, who was in a tight race for governor with Foster Friess, a businessman and supporter of conservative and evangelical Christian causes.

“Foster lost by just 9,000 votes,” said Carol Armstrong of Cody, who circulated through the crowd urging party members to sign the petition.

The intent is to stop “a Democrat from coming in to the polling place and deciding Frank Smith is going to be easier to beat than Joe Blow, and hopefully skewing the primary to get Smith as the candidate,” Kimmet told the roughly 60 Republicans at the caucus.

“Both Republicans and Democrats should sign this,” he said. “This isn’t really a party thing. It’s more just a way to keep people honest.”

Not everyone at the event was for the initiative. Though not wanting to go on the record, one person in attendance said Wyoming voters have always been able to change course at the polls and want it to stay that way. At the registration table, those signing in GOP voters were watching for “jumpers” who had recently switched parties.

To get the issue on the ballot, those collecting signatures need to get 15% of registered voters to sign the petition in two-thirds of the state’s counties. If the effort is successful, it will be placed on the ballot only needing a simple majority of voters’ support to become law.

There have been several unsuccessful attempts to change the registration rules in the Legislature, Kimmet noted.

“We, as grassroots people, are trying to change it ourselves,” he said. “If it gets to the general election and we have a simple majority, it will be enacted into law and the governor or the Legislature can’t change it.”

The caucus is considered a workshop of the grassroots of the party, as they worked on the county party’s bylaws, platforms and resolutions. There was no debate on 2020 Republican candidates for president. President Donald Trump received nearly 70 percent of the state’s vote in 2016 and is clearly supported by a wide margin again in 2020 by Park County Republicans. Proposals made at the caucus will be debated at the party’s convention on March 28 at the Cody VFW. Park County Democrats, meanwhile, will gather for their own caucuses on April 4 at the Cody Holiday Inn, where they’ll weigh in on their party’s nominee to oppose Trump.