CHEYENNE — The Wyoming Republican Party on Saturday selected a former Wyoming Speaker of the House, a Cheyenne attorney and a local farmer as the three finalists for secretary of state.

Torrington’s Ed Buchanan, Cheyenne’s Darin Smith and Richard George — who lives between Cody and Powell — are all vying to fill the spot left vacant by former Secretary of State Ed Murray.

Murray resigned earlier this month after two women publicly accused him of sexual misconduct.

Now, Gov. Matt Mead will select the replacement to serve the remaining 10 months of Murray’s term. That appointee will oversee the August primary elections and November general elections; supervise business and trademark registration; and would be first in line to replace the governor if he couldn’t complete his term.

Under state law, Mead must make a decision within five days of receiving the nominees; that means he’ll pick a candidate by the end of the day on Thursday, said Dave Bush, a spokesman for Mead.

“I would not assume for a moment that I would do a better job than either of the other two candidates,” George told the Powell Tribune on Monday. He praised Buchanan and Smith and said he would “glady” support either candidate if they’re chosen by the governor.

“I am simply willing to put my name out there as a concerned and willing citizen,” George said.

Eight people applied for the spot. The state party passed over bids from Wyoming Auditor Cynthia Cloud of Cody, former Secretary of State Max Maxfield, former state Rep. Pete Illoway and Robert Elwell of Cheyenne and Hot Springs County Clerk Nina Webber.

Each candidate presented a three-minute speech to the Republican committee and answered eight questions about election policies, voting equipment, public lands and public investment.

The following is a brief summary of the major policy positions discussed by each finalist:

Richard George

The Republican national committeeman for Wyoming said he felt God was pushing him toward the vacant seat in the secretary of state’s office.

“We need to have people in the secretary of state’s office who care about elections and we’ve got to have conservatives filling these seats,” he said.

George talked frequently about the “good people” that currently worked in the

secretary of state’s office and how he would try to equip them with tools they need to do the job.

He said if the state were to adopt a vote-by-mail approach, the secretary of state’s office would need to take a “heavy-handed approach” to make sure that people didn’t abuse it.

George added in a Monday text to the Tribune that he believes the idea of mail ballots should be “thrown out,” saying other states have seen problems and that policies that would make elections cheaper but raise the risk of fraud “should not be considered.”

“There is something special about folks showing up to the courthouse for early voting or making [an] effort to show up to the polls on Election Day,” George told the Tribune.

In response to a question posed Saturday about the secretary’s role on the State Loan and Investment Board, which manages land funds and administers grant and loan programs to cities, towns and counties, George said he would be efficient with state money and prudent in awarding contracts.

He said he’d be ready to ask tough questions about grants awarded to communities.

“There’s nothing better to change Wyoming’s financial situation than a farmer with a sharp pencil,” George said.

Ed Buchanan

The Laramie County prosecutor and former Wyoming speaker of the House — who finished as the runner-up to Murray in the 2014 Republican primary race for secretary of state — focused on the issue of voter fraud during his question-and-answer session.

“This is something we’ve seen a lot in the news lately, and I can tell you that it’s happened in a lot of states,” Buchanan said.

The topic of voter fraud has become more prevalent in recent years as largely Republican states such as Kansas and Wisconsin have passed strict Voter ID laws requiring people to carry a government-issued photo ID to polls.

But critics of those proposals say those laws target poor people as part of a growing effort to roll back progress on voting rights.

Buchanan said he doesn’t buy that argument because the state would make government-issued IDs available to help people vote.

“To me, it’s not an inconvenience to show up to the polls, show an ID, get checked off, match your address … so that we can have confidence that the people who are voting are eligible to vote,” he said.

He also said he’d crack down on people who no longer live in Wyoming casting out of state ballots.

“If you lose the integrity of your elections, nothing else really matters,” he said.

In addition to voter fraud, Buchanan also advocated for using better technology to make customer service better for filing, educating the public about regulatory processes and finding more efficiencies to save the state time and money.

Darin Smith

The Cheyenne attorney and former Christian Broadcasting Network executive said he would bring Wyoming into the future by trying to attract technology businesses.

“Because of weather and energy needs, Wyoming is an ideal place for data centers and crypto-currency miners,” he said. “There are literally thousands of companies that could and should have their data centers in Wyoming.”

He lauded the Wyoming Legislature for introducing bills that would enable cryptocurrency trading in the state. Wyoming is one of the few states in the country that doesn’t currently allow people to trade virtual tokens such as Bitcoin.

Those two bills were approved by committees last week and wait passage of the full House.

Like Buchanan, Smith said he worried about the integrity of elections.

He said imposing some kind of ID requirement would be “absolutely essential.”

When asked whether he would support a “vote-by-mail” proposal that has been adopted in other states, Smith said he was “100 percent, diametrically opposed.”

He said that allowing people to send mail-in ballots instead of voting in person would “breed corruption.”

(Wyoming Tribune Eagle — Via Wyoming News Exchange, CJ Baker contributed reporting.)