Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

CHEYENNE -- The upcoming legislative session in 2025 could have a new feature that allows members of the public to track roll call votes on legislation as they're being recorded.

Wyoming currently has a combination voting system where oral roll-call votes are recorded electronically by the chief clerk in both the Senate and House of Representatives. Lawmakers must be physically present in order to cast their oral vote before the chief clerk captures it electronically.

Once the chief clerk closes the roll call vote, a file is generated into the legislative management system. When that action is acquired, the vote is posted to the state legislature's website. Legislative Service Office senior IT specialist Jamie Schaub said the entire process typically takes place within a minute or less.

But this process could see a new addition that allows the public to track the votes as they're being recorded by the chief clerk.

On Thursday, LSO IT staff created a mock-up electronic voting board screen and presented it to the Legislature's Select Committee on Legislative Facilities, Technology and Process. The screen includes a color-coded display of the lawmakers' votes, the name and number of the bill being voted on, and which reading it's on.

Is this necessary?In 2015, Wyoming was considered a leader by the National Conference of State Legislatures in its transparency of recorded roll call votes, LSO Special Projects Manager Wendy Madsen said. The Cowboy State was one of the first states in the country to take a recorded roll call vote and distribute it to the website.

Committee co-Chairman Sen. Cale Case, R-Casper, who hesitated on the idea, said it's important to consider this is something the Legislature is "actually doing very well."

"We're literally talking seconds to minutes," Case said.

Both chambers in the state Capitol have the capacity to display this screen on an electronic voting board attached to the wall. Case said the downside of the electronic board is that people may flip their vote after seeing how their colleagues voted, he said, "and it becomes kind of a circus."

"If you don't think this doesn't happen, go visit the U.S. Congress," Case said. "It is such a lack of decorum, votes flipping around, blocs turning one way, then this way, running around negotiating on the floor -- it cuts the bottom out of it."

Lawmakers, including Case, also questioned whether this voting board is really necessary. Sen. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, said he failed to see what value this board would bring to either the governing body or the public. He added that he didn't want people reaching out to him as soon as his vote was publicly displayed.

"I don't have any interest in getting contacted based on my vote once it gets posted so that somebody could tell me I voted wrong in real time," Rothfuss said.

Rep. Dalton Banks, R-Cowley, who is in support of the idea, said this was a push for more public transparency.

"I couldn't care less how (lawmakers) vote. It goes back to public perception and transparency," Banks said. "I believe if (the electronic voting board) accomplishes that, then we're doing our job."

Co-chairman Rep. Dan Zwonitzer, R-Cheyenne, said while he didn't think the board on the chamber wall was necessary, it'd be useful to have recorded votes broadcast so the public could track the votes in real time.

He recalled a time 10 years ago when another chief clerk accidentally hit the wrong button and recorded an incorrect vote on a bill. When the roll call came out, the representative went to the chief clerk because he wrote down the bill failed by one vote while she recorded it passing by one vote.

"It is conceivable to hit the wrong button, and so having another set of eyes on it at least is not the worst thing ever," Zwonitzer said.

Sen. Dan Laursen, R-Powell, said this is something he's wanted for the last eight years, and brought it up again during the committee's meeting last month. He said it's vital that real-time recorded votes are easy to see for the public.

"It's presented really quick, like we said, within minutes," Laursen said. "But for a lot of people, it is a difficult website to go to if you don't go to it often."

Next stepsThe committee unanimously voted in favor of creating a link to the clerk's voting screen on the legislative website. When a vote is open, LSO staff will populate the website with a screen similar to the mock-up presented before the committee.

This proposal will now go before the Legislature's Management Council as a formal presentation for consideration.