Judge Says Wyoming’s Closed Primaries and ‘Sore Loser’ Rules Are Legal — for Now

The original story by Maggie Mullen for WyoFile.

Wyoming’s election rules survived a major court test Friday. A Laramie County district judge upheld the state’s closed primary system and its “sore loser” law, shooting down a lawsuit filed by voters, former candidates, and a retired lawmaker who said the rules trample “political equality” guaranteed by the Wyoming Constitution.

Judge Nathaniel S. Hibben didn’t see it that way. In a written decision, he said the statutes “regulate the manner in which political rights are exercised but do not abridge the rights themselves,” and they don’t violate equal protection. Translation: lawmakers can set the ground rules for how parties pick nominees, and these particular rules pass constitutional muster.

The case isn’t over, though. The challengers have 30 days to appeal, and Hibben all but predicted the next stop:

“This dispute will inevitably be resolved by the Wyoming Supreme Court.”

The lawsuit landed in August 2024 targeting Wyoming’s ban on failed primary candidates hopping onto the general-election ballot as independents — the classic “sore loser” scenario. By April, the case had broadened to take aim at the state’s closed primaries and a crossover-voting crackdown that limits when voters can switch party affiliation.

For years, Wyoming functioned with a semi-open setup: you could change party on Election Day (and through most of early voting) and then vote that party’s ballot. In 2023, lawmakers tightened the screws, creating a 96-day blackout period before the primary that lines up with candidate filing. The goal was to stop crossover voting — a strategy some Democrats used to back more moderate Republicans in a state where the GOP dominates most races.

Plaintiffs argued the new timeline and closed primaries burden the fundamental right to vote and discriminate against those outside the major parties. Hibben disagreed, writing that the right at issue isn’t an absolute right to vote for any candidate in any primary, but the right to participate in the party you choose to affiliate with.

The court said the prohibition on failed primary candidates jumping to the general ballot doesn’t extinguish the right to run. Why? Because the Wyoming Constitution protects write-in candidacies. If you lose a primary, you can still be a write-in — not a great path, but a path nonetheless.

Secretary of State Chuck Gray, the named defendant in his official capacity, called the ruling “a huge win for the integrity of Wyoming’s elections,” touting the crossover ban as central to his office’s agenda. The plaintiffs, meanwhile, are expected to take their case upstairs to the Wyoming Supreme Court — where the broader implications for voters, candidates, and party control will get a second look.

Plaintiffs pressed a political reality Wyomingites know well: in many districts, the primary is effectively the election. Hibben didn’t bite, saying it’s not the court’s role to fix partisan imbalance. Instead, he pointed to rights the plaintiffs still have — to organize, persuade, run, and vote — within the system the Legislature designed.

Bottom line: the rules stand today. Whether they stand tomorrow is up to the justices.