Free and fair: Poll workers have a personal stake in election trust

“I will guarantee to anybody that this election is as fair as it can be, because I was in it,” he said in between checking in voters at his Albany County Fairgrounds polling place.

That sense of personal responsibility resonated with other election judges.

When asked if the Albany County election was free and fair, judge John Duvall said that, “One of our jobs is to make it so, as best we can.”

That sense of importance and duty is common among the small army of election workers it took to hold Tuesday’s Wyoming primary.

For Mattimore, the 2020 election was the motivation to act and get involved in the process.

“There were a lot of complaints about the election in 2020,” he said.

By working the polls himself, Mattimore said was able to see the process firsthand, including the new voter identification requirement.

Tuesday’s election required judges to follow the state’s new voter identification law, which requires a Wyoming driver’s license or state-issue identification, tribal identification, valid U.S. passport, U.S. military card, driver’s license or identification card from another state, University of Wyoming, college community college or public school student identification, or a valid Medicare or Medicaid insurance card.

“The ID law may slow things down, but there is no doubt,” Mattimore said. “I feel a lot more comfortable about it than before. It makes sure everything is legit.”

Doubts about the election have been tearing the country apart, said Raul Merly, Mattimore’s partner working the polling place verifying and logging addresses.

The verification that he and Mattimore oversaw can help bring it together.

Merly said their system of checking names, identifications and addresses, with two judges from two parties keeping track of the voters, means that “we super-verify everything.”

Election Judge Joe Horther said he encourages others to serve as a judge to help understand “how well it is run. … There are checks and balances.”

An added benefit, he said, is a chance to meet other judges.

As judges are paired in teams of opposing political parties, getting to know their colleagues on the front lines of the election may seem an opportunity for conflict.

That’s not the case, Merly said.

“I never expected to find a happy, nice person on this (he gestured to his right) side of the table. But I did,” he said. “It invigorated my faith in America.”