April 13, 2016

 Understanding Wyoming’s Surrogate Forms

Out of our desire to provide Wyoming Democrats greater access to the election process this year, we implemented a surrogate form, essentially an absentee ballot for the 2016 Wyoming Democratic Caucus. Our intention was that democrats across the state would have greater opportunity to get involved in the selection of their candidate and improve participation in the caucus. Surrogate forms were available to those whose presence was prevented by religious observance, military service, disability, illness or work schedule.

Unfortunately, due in part to confusion about our delegate selection formula— of which you can find a full explanation here—the new procedure has been drawn into question. We hope to assure you here that the surrogate forms were handled with the utmost integrity and respect to the voters of Wyoming.

The Wyoming Democratic Party made the forms available online and advertised their availability in a variety of ways. Additionally, both campaigns embraced the use of the surrogate forms and promoted their use to likely voters.

All forms were due April 1 at 5 p.m. Only emailed forms were time-stamped, but the Wyoming Democratic Party has unwavering confidence in the reliability of the way they were handled—strictly by the party’s executive director and data director with assistance from volunteer supporters of both Secretary Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders campaigns.  

The total number of surrogate forms cast for Clinton was 1,551, and 1,294 were cast for Sanders, while 3 were cast for uncommitted or undecided. Of the nearly 3,300 surrogate forms received, only about 13 percent were ineligible due to lack of voter registration, incomplete forms, or because they were received after the deadline.

Of the approximately 42,000 registered democrats in the state, nearly 7,200 participated in this year’s caucus—about 18 percent. That number is up from 15 percent in 2008. Of the votes in this year’s Wyoming Democratic Caucus, 2,848 were via surrogate forms—40 percent. This illustrates to us the value of providing this means of contributing caucus votes and the importance of upholding the process’  integrity.

We are confident that this surrogate form option increased participation in the state and did so with accurate representation of Wyoming democrats. We have invited both Senator Sanders’ campaign and Secretary Clinton’s campaign to review our process and records, and as of this posting neither have formally taken us up on that offer. We remain open to that option and are available to either campaign to answer questions about the 2016 Wyoming Democratic Caucus.

Wyoming Democratic Party
April 16, 2016 facebook posting   

Today representatives from both the Clinton and Sanders campaign met to review both the surrogate forms and the process by which those forms were processed. Both representatives found the process to be straightforward and coherent and gave their seal of approval.

Now that the campaigns have had an opportunity to review and approve the process by which the forms were received and processed we are happy to move the conversation forward into what we as Wyoming Democrats can do to help elect Democrats here in Wyoming and increase our standing in the state legislature this fall.