Dear editor:

Phyllis Roseberry’s letter is in error. Our six member panel of Park County Patriots Dan Laursen, Dave McMillan, Tim Lasseter, Boone Tidwell, Larry and Toni French asked the commissioners to reject the ES&S voting machines. Sen. Laursen and Dave McMillan made the presentation. Two years ago we asked the commissioners for permission to hand count the ballots as a check to verify the machine counts. That is when the AG made her ruling. 

As stated to the commissioners, Wyoming statute 22-10-102 states “The Board of county commissioners MAY adopt for use in any precinct a type of voting machine meeting the standards specified in WS 22-10-101.” When you put this in the perspective of when we stopped counting ballots by hand it does not say we must machine count. Before we met with the commissioners the first time, over 50 people met and counted 200 ballots that we had the government classes from Powell, Cody and Meeteetse high schools vote. We had teams of three and teams of two. The teams of three were more accurate and faster. The teams of three counted ballots in an average of 32 seconds each. 

I have been an election judge for many years and have attended the voting demonstrations put on by Hans Odde. Phyllis is wrong to state that none of us have attended these. Boone Tidwell was with me at one of the meetings with Hans. 

Phyllis is wrong to claim that our group is trying to cast doubt on the voting process. Secretary of State Chuck Gray supports us in this process. 

On Dec. 7 at the GOP central committee meeting with around 60 members and guests in attendance, I asked for a show of hands as to how many trusted the voting machines. Not one person raised their hand. I also conducted a poll with this question “If you could choose how your election ballots are counted, would you want your votes to be counted by machines or humans?” On Jan. 13 at the farmer’s market in Cody, on Jan. 22 at 307 coffee shop in Powell, on Jan. 25 at New Life Church and Feb. 3 at the GOP caucus, the poll was available. The results were 152 for human count and 20 for machine count. 

Phyllis also claims that the commissioners have no legal right to make this happen. I’m sorry but she is wrong once again. Just read WS 22-10-102.

Larry French 

Powell