Marc Elias Sues WY To Make It Easier For Noncitizens To Vote

Russia collusion hoaxer Marc Elias filed a lawsuit Friday challenging a new Wyoming law that makes it harder for noncitizens to register to vote.

Gov. Mark Gordon, R-Wyo., allowed House Bill 156 to become law on March 21 without his signature. The legislation requires prospective registrants to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote. Proof includes a U.S. passport, birth certificate, or naturalization papers, among other options. The legislation, which passed the state House 51 to eight and the state Senate by 26 to four, is slated to go into effect on July 1, 2025.

But Elias, alongside the Equality State Policy Center and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit to overturn the will of the state, alleging the legislation violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

“When HB 156 becomes effective, it will impose new, burdensome, and entirely unnecessary requirements that will make it harder for eligible citizens to vote,” the suit claims. “The result will be the exclusion and disenfranchisement of citizens.”

The suit claims, in part, that “Women — as well as Hispanic, young, and low-income voters — are less likely to have acceptable documentation and, in many cases, face greater hurdles to obtaining it.” Women, the suit contends, “are more likely than men to be turned away when they go to register as a result of HB 156,” because of name changes resulting from marriage.

But this claim has been peddled — and disproven — before.

As Cleta Mitchell, senior legal fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute, previously told The Federalist, “When women change their names upon marriage (or divorce) there is a process for changing / updating [their] name from birth certificate or a prior marriage.” She noted how “Millions of women do it every day so they can operate their lives under their married names.”

The lawsuit also argues that “both federal and Wyoming law have long prohibited noncitizens from voting.”

“And pre-existing Wyoming law required anyone registering to vote to attest to their eligibility in a sworn statement,” the suit continues.

As noted in the lawsuit, State Rep. John Bear pointed out that “the attestation requirement did not adequately safeguard Wyoming elections, because an attestation ‘is not the same thing as proof.’”

And Bear is right. The honor system is simply insecure. Current federal law prohibiting noncitizens from voting is largely toothless. Prospective voters merely check a small square box on a federal form attesting under penalty of perjury that they are a citizen. It’s the same reason why the Republican-led House passed the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would also require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote.

Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray said the lawsuit “shows how far the radical Left is willing to go to try to stop election integrity. The far-left’s lawsuit is a meritless attempt to undermine the common-sense election integrity measures Wyomingites want. Proof of citizenship and proof of residency are common sense measures pivotal to election integrity, which is why house Bill 156 was the number one priority of our conservative election integrity agenda during the 2025 Legislative Session.”

“I will be preparing to vigorously defend Wyoming’s proof of citizenship and residency requirements,” he continued.